Sword and Sheath
by Katta
Summary: Faith and Robin are fighting vampires in Cleveland, but when Robin receives a couple of ancient artifacts, the effects are lifechanging... and not just for the two of them.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1  
Faith

* * *

The vampire made an incredibly feeble attempt to attack, moving like a drunk on stilts. Faith felt a little disappointed. She hadn't kicked him that hard, and if he didn't put up a better fight than this, it'd all be over way too soon for her liking. The night had been quiet, and this idiot vamp wasn't much more than an appetizer. She kept pummelling him for a while, avoiding the final blow, but he wasn't good enough to make it the least bit interesting, and finally she tired of the whole thing and plunged the stake in.

The vampire exploded in a cloud of dust. A rush, as always, but not satisfying enough.

She put away the stake and dug her cell phone from her jeans pocket, pressing speed dial 5. Robin had better not be asleep.

He wasn't, though it took six rings for him to answer.

"Get your ass over to my place," she told him. "I'm gonna fuck you harder than you've ever been fucked."

"Hello, Faith," he said. "I'm afraid I'm a bit busy right now."

Oh, crap. She hated it when he messed with her. "Busy doing what? Grading papers at 2 AM?"

"I have a friend over."

"Well, ask her if she's interested in a threesome."

He chuckled. "Good night, Faith."

"I'm gonna get laid tonight," she said. "With or without you."

"That sounds like a good idea," he agreed. "Oh, and Faith? It's a guy."

"Huh?"

"My friend's a guy."

"Hey, whatever floats your boat," she said, hanging up on him. She kicked the nearest headstone. Damn. First she was faced with a sub-par vampire, and then Robin bailed on her. Seemed like she'd have to raid the night clubs for company tonight. What a hassle – and by this hour, she was bound to end up with some total loser.

This night was so not working out for her.

She tucked away the cell phone and picked up her jacket that she'd left draped over a grave. Well, she guess she knew a couple of places nearby that had a decent clientele. But if her date tonight came with pimples and loud, off-putting wails, she would hold Robin personally responsible.

* * *

Faith woke up in the bright morning, but kept her eyes closed, afraid of what she'd see if she opened them. She tried to remember the guy from last night. He'd been boring in bed, that much she remembered – not fumbling or anything, just so bland and predictable that she damned near had to finish on her own. Why had she ever brought him over...?

Oh, yeah. He'd been gorgeous. That oughta teach her what a pretty face was worth.

Slowly, reluctantly, she rolled over on her side and cracked an eyelid open.

There was no one else in the bed.

"Thank you, Jesus," she breathed, opening the other eye as well to make sure she'd seen that right. He must've snuck out while she was sleeping, and she never even heard him leave. For once, falling asleep after sex didn't mean she had to face the awkward morning after stuff.

She sat up and grabbed her pants from the end of the bed. As she put them on, she hummed off-key to herself.

The phone rang from the living room, and a voice asked, "Do you want me to get that?"

Faith stopped cold. Oh, shit. The guy. He was still here. He was in the kitchen, which meant... oh, God, no, there had to be another explanation. He wasn't making her breakfast, was he?

"No, that's okay," she called as soon as she had found her voice. "I'll get it."

She ran into the living room, careful not to look towards the kitchen, and picked up the phone. "Yeah, hello."

"I have something you might be interested in," Robin's voice said from the other end of the line. "Want to come and see?"

"Why should I?" she asked, listening to the sounds in the kitchen. Yeah, that was definitely the percolator running. "You didn't come over last night."

"Well, you didn't bribe me with an ancient, funky-looking sword."

"Sword, huh?" That did sound interesting. Faith dared a peek over her shoulder. No prettyboy sticking his head out from the kitchen. Yet. "I kinda have company."

A puzzled silence followed, and then Robin asked, "What, still?"

"Yeah," Faith groaned, hearing the toaster pop up toast. She added in a low voice, "I think he's making me breakfast."

"Oh, dear," Robin said wryly. "Okay, come when you can, then."

"Twenty minutes okay?"

"Don't make him cry."

"I'll try not to. Later."

She hung up, hesitating for a moment before heading into the kitchen. A couple of years ago, she would have simply kicked the guy out, with physical kicking if needed. She didn't want to do that anymore – but ancient swords were a whole lot cooler than vapid fratboys.

He was standing there now, everything she remembered from last night, except his hair was a bit mussed and his feet bare. And he was frying eggs.

Seeing her enter, he gave her a radiant smile and asked, "How do you like your eggs?"

"Uh, over-easy," she said automatically. Bad move. Answering him was a bad move, because it meant accepting that he was making breakfast, that taking her things out of her fridge while she was sleeping was cute and caring and not freaky at all. "Actually, I... kind of have to leave."

His face fell. "But what about the eggs? And I've made coffee... and toast."

As if that was her fault. Twerp. She imagined kicking him repeatedly in the head until he lay unconscious on the floor, and then pouring the coffee over him. "You can always..." Leave it, she wanted to say. It was her food, after all. "...Take it with you, I guess. I think I have bags and stuff."

He looked down on the eggs, pouting. "I thought chicks liked this stuff."

Oh, Jesus, did he really expect her to play What Women Want with him? She forced herself to smile. "I've. Got. Someplace. To. Be." She found an empty soda bottle and poured the coffee into it. Then she stuffed the toast in a bag and handed it all over. "Sorry. Do you want a box for the eggs?"

The strategy seemed to work – she loaded him up with boxes and bags and forced him to retreat. By the front door he stopped, though, and tried another bright smile as he asked, "When can I see you again?"

Okay, she now officially took no more responsibility for making this moron cry. "You can't," she snapped. "This was a one night stand. Key ingredient? It only lasts one night. Then you leave. Bye!"

She pushed him out the door and closed it in his face, careful not to check if there were any tears in his eyes. That way she wouldn't have to lie about it.

Leaning against the door, she counted to one hundred slowly. The last thing she wanted was to accompany him down the street. Then she opened the door and peeked out. He was gone. Seemed that he could at least take a hint as wide as a barn door.

She took her jacket from the chair where she'd thrown it the night before and headed out. She could use the slayage – at least there, things didn't get so damned messy after the kill.

Her bike was standing out on the street, and it was soaked. Damn. If she had known it'd be raining, she would've taken it inside. Should've done that anyway, of course, but it was hard to remember that kind of thing when you were about to get groiny with someone.

She'd bought a helmet along with the bike, but she barely ever used it – what was the point of being a Slayer if you kept padding yourself up like a scared civilian? So she just tied her hair into a ponytail and zipped up her jacket before getting onto the bike.

Half an hour after the phone call, she knocked on Robin's door. She could hear him rustling inside, but it took a while before he opened.

"That was fast," he said, blinking at the morning light.

"I said twenty minutes," she pointed out, going inside.

He nodded. "You made him cry, didn't you?"

"Not that I noticed," she said cheerfully, glad that she could hang up her jacket so she didn't have to look him in the eyes.

"Uh-huh," he said dryly. "Want to come in and look at the sword?"

"You know I do."

She followed him into the living room. It was pretty messy, and there was a large box standing on the floor, but she still noticed the sword right away. It lay on the coffee table across piles of papers, and she picked it up, butterflies in her stomach.

The sheath was made of wood and had been covered in leather once upon a time, but now there were only darkened patches of it left. One of those patches had some writing, but upon closer inspection it turned out that the writing was in runes or something, so Faith quickly lost interest and drew the sword, tossing the sheath aside. Robin cried out in alarm and caught it, giving Faith an accusing glare. "Do you always treat historical artifacts that way?"

Faith didn't listen – she was looking at the sword. It was fairly long with a broad blade, and had a few more runes at the hilt, as well as a sun inlaid on the pommel in silvery metal. The blade was a bit discolored but... she tried the edge. Yeah, still sharp.

"Okay, kinda tight," she said. "I don't get what's so funky about it, though."

"Tight's the word," he agreed. "That hilt is way too small for most people's hands. At first I thought it was meant for a three-finger grip, you know, keeping your pinkie on the pommel..."

"You get that excited about fighting, huh?" she asked, turning the sword over.

"Funny. Thing is, it's meant for a full-hand grip all right. Just for someone with really small hands."

Well, it fitted her hands just fine. "A girl?"

"It's way too heavy for a girl." He gave her a wide grin. "That is to say, a normal girl."

It took a while for the penny to drop. When it did, her grin became even wider than his. "A Slayer?"

"That's what I'm thinking."

"Cool." She swung the sword around slowly, testing its weight while making sure not to take it too close to Robin. She'd never been all that into swords, trusting force to take her where technique couldn't, but this felt strangely like family history – like the sword belonged to an older sister. A much older sister.

"So, how old is it?" she asked, trying to imagine the girl who had carried it.

"Not all that old. They just dug it up from a grave back in Newfoundland, so it looks older than it would if it'd been hanging at a museum all this time. Definitely predates Columbus, though. Guy who sent it said it was Viking, probably twelfth century."

"An American Viking sword, huh?" she said. The Slayer became clearer to her view then: a broad-shouldered blonde Valkyrie with a woollen dress and a horned helmet – no, not the helmet, she decided. No sister of hers was gonna look that much like a dork. "Awesome. So what do the runes say?"

He frowned. "What runes?"

"Over here," she said, holding carefully at the blade to show him the hilt. "And on the sheath."

Robin picked up the sheath and turned it over in his hand.

"No, on the other side," she said, pointing with the tip of the sword.

He started turning the sheath again, but suddenly flinched, dropping the sheath on the floor as if it had bitten him. "What the hell?"

"What's wrong?" she asked, coming over to look. A red mark was forming on the palm of his hand. Coming closer, she stared as inside the mark, black lines turned up, one by one. It looked like someone was carving letters into his skin.

"I guess those are the runes in question?" he asked weakly.

She nodded, dumbfounded by what she saw. As far as she could tell, they were exactly the same - not even mirrored, like they should have been if they had been burned on his palm from the sheath.

Since when did sheaths burn people, anyway?

"The sword must be cursed or something," Robin said, and tried to joke: "Lucky as always."

"The sword's not cursed," she argued, gripping it tighter. It didn't feel cursed. Just the opposite: it felt like something she was supposed to hold, like it had been made for her. "It didn't burn me. Look!" She showed him her unburned right hand. "It's the sheath. Or maybe it's you."

To try the latter theory, she stooped down and prodded the sheath carefully with her fingertip. When nothing happened, she ran her fingertips over the faded runes, and then her palm. Still nothing.

"Okay," she said, standing up straight. "It's you." That wasn't a very comforting thought either. What did the sheath have against Robin?

"Yes, because historical artifacts burn me all the time," he deadpanned, though she could see the fear in his eyes. "It's an allergy. Come on, Faith, you know it's not me."

"Maybe it's just the first person who touches the sheath?"

"I touched it before," he pointed out. "As did you. And the archaeologist I got it from sure as hell touched it when he sent it over."

"Well, the first to touch the runes then," she countered. She hated when he got all logical and superior with her. So he was a few years older. She could still kick his ass.

He flexed his fingers, staring at his palm. "We got to find out why this happened. Not to mention what it means. I'm calling my guy."

"You do that," she said.

As he picked up the phone, she looked around the room for food. Nothing. There were piles of junk on every shelf and table, but nothing edible among them. She even lay down on her knees and checked under the sofa. Only dust under there – and not very much of that either.

That was the trouble with fucking an adult – you had to make it all the way to the kitchen to find a decent snack. Maybe she shouldn't have been so quick to dis Mr. Breakfast. Or at the very least she shouldn't have let him leave with half of her food. Sighing, she went to see what Robin kept in his fridge. Maybe if she was really lucky, there'd be a bag of chips or something.

There wasn't. That didn't surprise her – there hardly ever was. Obviously no meat either, or pizza, or anything really worth eating. She shut the door and tried some cupboards, taking an apple without much enthusiasm. The guy was a bachelor; would it kill him to eat like one? And then she found the box of pop tarts. The unopened box of pop tarts.

"Bingo," she said, ripping it open and sticking two of the pop tarts into the toaster. When Robin joined her, she was munching away, enjoying the delicious taste of sugar, fat, and white flour.

"Guess there's a real person under that health nut exterior after all," she greeted him.

"Actually, those are for you," he said, smiling a little.

She stopped chewing and stared at him wide-eyed. "Get out of here. You bought pop tarts just for me?"

He shrugged. "It was either that or hearing you complain that there was nothing fit for a Slayer to eat. I figured, if I have a superhero hanging about, I may as well make sure she's happy."

"Good boy," she said, grinning to show him just how happy she was. She held out a pop tart for him to eat, and although he rolled his eyes, he did take a bite. Just one, but that was still a victory – in time, she might be able to rid him of nasty habits like health food and flossing.

"So, were they cursed?" she asked.

"I don't know. The guy had been fired."

"Fired?" That sounded ominous. "For what?"

"For selling historical artifacts," he replied with a grimace that showed he was aware of the irony.

She snorted with laughter, but very briefly, because on second thought, it wasn't all that funny. Not if there really was a curse. "Can you get in touch with him somehow?"

"I don't know. I hope so." He made an apologetic face. "I'll probably be on the phone a lot today."

She nodded. As if she'd have any complaints about that. Anything that'd clue them in on what the hell was going on was a good thing, especially if it stopped bad things from happening to him. But she didn't say that. She couldn't think of a way to say it that wouldn't sound like she expected him to die.

Her concern surprised her. She had a hard time believing in a curse, considering how good it had felt to hold the sword – why would someone curse a sheath and not a sword? – but she found it way too easy to believe Robin was in danger.

Which, what else was new, right? There were in danger every night. That was the whole point. Slayage without danger would be impossible... not to mention boring.

"Are we still on for tonight?" she asked.

"If I don't turn into a fire-breathing dragon, sure," he joked.

A voice echoed in her head: It'll be quite the celebration, my little firecracker. She shuddered at the memory.

"Want me to stay and keep watch?"

"Would you? I've got a cattle prod I could lend you."

"And you never told me?" She clicked her tongue, her voice light and teasing, but only to get them both in a better mood. That 'would you?' had been too relieved. Now she knew for certain that he was as worried as she was.

* * *

"Any change?" Faith asked several hours later, when the sun had set.

Robin raised his hand, palm facing Faith. The marks were still red in his hand, but there was very little swelling, and he most definitely hadn't turned into a fire-breathing dragon. "Either it's a very slow-moving curse, or that sheath was just a little wary of strangers. I'm fit to fight."

"Great!" she said, but when they mounted up, she brought the cattle prod as well as her stakes, just in case. And she left the sword in Robin's apartment. She was dying to take it out on a trial run, but all things considered, it wasn't worth the risk.

They took his car to an abandoned store in the Clark-Fulton neighborhood. Rumour had it there was a vamp nest in the store, and it sure as hell looked like one, with the windows all covered with brown paper and duct tape. Then again, if every crappy house was a vamp nest, there should've been a Hellmouth in Southie.

There was no denying it, though – something was living in that place. While the windows were taped shut, the door was slightly open, and there was light coming from inside. Could be simple squatters, but she still made sure to keep her stake ready as she headed inside.

The first thing she heard was a muffled but imposing voice saying, "...Sunnydale. Are we supposed to just sit here while they destroy this town as well?"

She turned and gave Robin a thumbs up. Definitely vampires. No squatter would sound that self-righteous, and she doubted a squatter would talk about Sunnydale's destruction either. The sound came from behind the store room – a storage area, maybe, or an office.

"We must protect our feeding grounds," the voice continued, and boy, she didn't think she'd ever heard someone that pompous who wasn't a Watcher. Maybe he'd been one before he was turned. That'd be a hoot, fighting a Watcher vampire.

"...dispose of the Slayer rubble..."

Blah blah blah. With all that rambling, she was surprised the vamps didn't stake him themselves.

She motioned for Robin to get closer. If they attacked while the vampire was still talking, there would probably be enough snoring for them to remain unheard until the very last moment.

She walked to the back of the store and listened by the door. There were murmurs of agreement from in there, but she couldn't tell how many the vamps were. Oh well, they'd just have to take a chance. Counting on her fingers, she signalled to Robin, 'One, two, three,' and then the two of them kicked down the door.

The speaker turned out to be a tall, bearded vampire with a haughty, thin face and glasses. And he was wearing a suit, for crying out loud. There were about six or seven other vampires with him, but she didn't have time to count them – she started pummelling the one closest to the fallen door, a stocky little thing that dressed like a frat boy. She'd had enough of those to last a lifetime.

At first the vampires seemed unconcerned – they attacked, but like a cat attacks the mouse, like she had often attacked single vampires on graveyards. She could feel them slowly catching on to what was happening. Their fighting style became more intense, more frenzied. They might like to talk big, but as neighborhood vigilantes went, most of them weren't exactly impressive. A few were pretty good, though, among them the speaker himself, amazingly enough. He might look like a stiff, but he sure as hell didn't move like one, and she was starting to find it increasingly difficult to resist his attacks. She was pretty sure she could take him out in the end, but the rest of the vamps, clumsy or not, made it pretty damned difficult.

Robin was in trouble too. He had his hand around the throat of a feisty blonde thing who fought like a girl – but like a very strong girl. Out of the corner of her eye, Faith saw the vampire chick kick Robin in the balls and break loose. It would have been funny, if it didn't mean Robin was left gasping for air with a bunch of vamps ready to finish him off. Faith gave her opponent a jumping kick, and upon hitting flesh pushed off so she flew over the heads of the vampires, landing on the ground before Robin.

"Want him, you go through me," she said, plunging her stake into the closest vamp.

The others seemed to appraise the situation for a second, and then the leader opened a door, whistling at the others to follow him. They slunk through it fast as rats, and though Faith tried to follow, by the time she reached the door it slammed in her face. She started beating it. Lead casing. Damn. Damn damn fucking damn. She pounded on the wall next to the floor instead, sending pieces of plaster and concrete flying.

"Leave... it..." Robin gasped from the floor.

She gave the wall a few more punches and then returned to him. "You okay? Did you kill anyone?"

"Just the one," he replied, trying to get up though he was still clearly in pain. "You?"

"Two. Four of them still out there. Damn!"

He managed to sit up. "Your hand is bleeding."

She looked down on her hand, and he was right, the knuckles were bloody. "Oh."

"We'll get them some other night," he said, taking her hand to examine it. A tickling sensation spread under her skin, and the wound closed before their eyes.

She pulled back her hand. "Whoa. Did you... I mean, was that..." She stared at her knuckles, as pink and whole as if there had never been anything wrong with them. "Did you do that?"

He looked as baffled as she felt. "I don't think so."

"I do." It seemed like a reasonable enough explanation. He touched her, her wound healed, thus he had made her wound heal. Sure, Slayers healed fast even when left on their own, but not that fast. There was some mojo stuff going on, and she was willing to bet that he was it.

"Come on, Faith," he protested. "I have no special powers, you know that. Why would I suddenly have the ability to heal you with my touch?"

She raised her eyebrows and turned his hand over, poking the marks in his palm with her nail.

His eyes widened. "Oh."

"We wanted to know what was up with the sheath. I guess now we do."

"It's a guess, that's all," he said. "We don't even know for certain that it was me."

Faith rolled her eyes. Fine, if he wanted more than circumstantial evidence, she'd give it to him. She grabbed her stake and plunged it right through her own hand, and before she even had time to think about how much that hurt, she grabbed Robin's hand again.

Just like before, the edges of the wound closed together so fast, within seconds it was as if it had never been there. There wasn't even any blood.

"Are you insane?" Robin asked.

"Hey, it worked, didn't it?"

"And what if it hadn't worked? What would you have done?"

She shrugged. "Bled."

That made him laugh, and he looked down on his hand with a sense of wonder that caused her to grin as well. She knew that expression, she'd seen it in the mirror the whole summer she turned 17. It was the 'wow, I'm a superhero' expression.

Funny, really. Robin was past thirty, and he was a hell of a fighter, best you could get if you were talking male and human. She would have expected him to be all jaded: 'Yeah, superpowers, whatever, where's that curriculum I was working on?' But no, he lit up like a little kid.

She pulled him closer and kissed him on the earlobe. "Congratulations. Guess you're a big boy now."

He shook his head, still chuckling quietly. "I'll try to get in touch with my contact again tomorrow. Just so I can find out what's going on."

"Well, it's too late to do it tonight," she said. "Want me to come home with you? Celebrate?"

"Ha!" he said. "Faith, if you think I'm up to anything sexual after the stunt that vampire pulled on me..."

"Still, hurting, huh?" she asked with a grimace. Then a thought occurred to her. "Think you could use your new power on yourself?"

He thought about it, and evidently considered it worth a try, because he put his hand on his fly. After a few moments, he took it away and, with an apologetic glance, stuck it inside his pants instead. Both of them waited.

Finally, Robin sighed deeply and took his hand up.

"Nothing, huh?" Faith asked, torn between disappointment and a wish to sound sympathetic.

"Apparently not." He stood up, his movements a little uncomfortable but not much so. "We'll have to call a rain check."

She hurried to her feet as well. "We could... celebrate... anyway?"

His eyes rested on her face. "Without sex? Are you sure?"

Now, what kind of a question was that? He made it sound as if she only ever came over to his place for sex. Which, she had to admit, was a large factor, but so was the food, and the slayage, and the occasional soap on cable.

"You got booze, right?" she asked. "And something to eat that isn't healthy?"

He swept the hair away from her face and then leaned in, letting his lips trace her jaw line. Shivers ran down her body. Damn, it wasn't right of him to tease her like this when he didn't intend to follow through – but she couldn't bring herself to mind.

"I might have something, yeah," he murmured in her ear.

She smiled. "Good. That's settled, then."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2  
Ella

* * *

The door held up, just as they had hoped – no Slayer followed the vampires as they hurried through the tunnels and surfaced in their emergency home: a one-family house in the good parts of town. They tumbled into the living room, only four of them where the same evening there had been seven.

"Slayers!" Mr. Merriweather spat, as if the word hurt his mouth. "After all these years, Slayers in our own homes! My poor Sire would have turned in his grave. A good thing that they staked him when they did."

Ella wrinkled her nose. She had been feeling all tired and dreary after the fight, and she blamed it on losing the shop. It had been such a good place to rally, and even better for parties. "They were really strong, weren't they?"

"Slayers usually are," Jeremy scoffed. He sat down on the sofa, checking his arm. "Damn it, I think she broke it."

"The girl was a Slayer," Ella said, annoyed with the way Jeremy had spoken to her. He always treated her like an idiot. "The boy can't have been. Can he, Father? Did they make boy Slayers when they did that... spell?" That abomination, rather. To think of hundreds of Slayers all over the world – ptui!

"I don't think so," Mr. Merriweather assured her, smiling gently despite the grave situation. She had always been his favourite, ever since she was a human, and she knew just how to pull his strings. "He was probably just a Watcher, or perhaps some kind of... what's that word again? Ah yes, wannabe."

Ella made a grimace. Wannabe Slayers. How utterly pathetic.

"Why don't we just kill her?" Dean asked, baring his fangs. "A couple of quick bites, and so long Slayer?"

"Why don't we just kill you?" Ella countered with a sweet smile. "That'd go even quicker, and it wouldn't even attract any more Slayers to our home."

"Show your nephew some respect, Ella," Mr. Merriweather said. "He's just lost his mother."

That stung. Patience had been a valuable member of the family, and Ella was willing to bet she'd miss her a lot more than Dean would – he was really just a dumb kid with no thought in his head beyond the next meal. She was surprised he had survived and Patience hadn't. If she ever found that he'd escaped by putting his mom in harm's way, he'd better find himself a hell-god fast and start praying.

"Yes, father," she said reluctantly. You didn't argue with Mr. Merriweather.

"We're gonna need more people," Jeremy said. "She kicked our asses even when there were seven of us. Now we're four. That's not enough."

Mr. Merriweather thought about it for a while, and then nodded. "You're right. We're going to have to recruit. I suppose we can put word out on the street - it won't be the same as family, but everybody opposes the Slayer menace."

"That's not what I was talking about." Jeremy got off the sofa, his eyes shining with enthusiasm. "That occultist bar downtown is full of humans. One night, and we have ourselves an army."

"Them?" Ella said, not believing her ears. "I'm sorry, were we not just on the subject of why wannabes are losers?"

"They'd be family," Jeremy pointed out.

"Family, my ass." Ella was raising her voice now, but only because none of the others would step up to tell Jeremy just how stupid his idea was. "I'm not sharing a home with some heads-in-the-clouds ex-humans who take their fashion statements from Hollywood."

"Oh, come off it! We're all ex-humans! We got over it."

"Some of us are a little more ex than others."

"I see." He nodded several times, his chin out. "It's the old 'I'm older than you, so I know everything' routine again, is it?"

"I don't have to know everything," she said sweetly. "I just have to know more than you."

"Children, please!" Mr. Merriweather protested. "I'll have none of this! We need to stand together now. Ella, I do think that Jeremy's idea may... have some merits."

Ella sat back down, pouting. She didn't argue, but she was very disappointed in her father. He usually showed much better sense than this, and the humans he chose usually had something going for them. The bare thought of calling those idiots in black lace her siblings made her nauseous.

"They're willing," Mr. Merriweather continued. "They're gathered together. Out of the dozens in that bar, there must be a few that could make passable vampires. At the very least, we could make some..." his mouth twitched in distaste, "...minions."

Ella couldn't stop a small, incredulous noise from escaping her lips. Her father had always hated the thought of creating minions. Always. Siring a vampire was serious business for him, not something to be undertaken because you needed servants.

The only explanation she could think of was that he was frightened out of his wits, and that frightened her. All the tales she had been told about Slayers came back to her mind. Multiply that with a hundred, two hundreds...

For the first time in over a century, she seriously feared for her unlife, and she remained quiet as the others made their plans on how to find the best humans and turn them.

She missed Patience, and Horace, and even Pearl a bit. One fight, and half her family were gone. That was what Slayers did to you. It was wise to fear them, to mount up... to sire children you wouldn't end up missing.

That didn't mean she had to like it.

"Will we do it tonight?" she asked.

Mr. Merriweather fished his watch out of his pocket – she had told him to get a wristwatch, but he was so old-fashioned in some ways. "Yes, I believe we should. The night is still young, and we have no time to waste."

"What if the Slayer raids the club?" She knew it was a ridiculous notion as soon as she said it – no vampire with any self-esteem would hang around such tacky places. It was the perfect spot to hit, in a way. If only it hadn't made her feel so dirty.

"That's settled, then," Mr. Merriweather said, ignoring her question. "I suggest we get ourselves prepared."

Ella obeyed, but with slow, dull movements, trying to postpone the demeaning moment as long as possible. On their way out the door, Mr. Merriweather touched her cheek and smiled at her.

"Don't you worry, my child," he told her. "We'll find you some suitable brothers and sisters."

She forced herself to smile back, even though she very much doubted that one night's hunting among needy humans would bring them anyone as fierce and glorious as Patience and Horace had been. It took more than innate talent to make such a creature, it took skill and experience honed over centuries.

"I will have to trust your taste in people, father," she said.

He put her arm around her waist. "That's my girl. Now, give daddy a kiss?"

She let her lips touch his, and as he changed into his demon face, she ran the tip of her tongue over his fangs. He pulled her closer and bit into her tongue, sucking just the tiniest bit of blood. Normally, this would be enough to bring her demon forward, but tonight her face felt stiff and heavy, and though she shuddered in delight, her fangs remained hidden.

"Is my girl feeling tired tonight?" Mr. Merriweather asked, letting go.

Licking the blood off her tongue, she replied, "Just a little bit, father. I can hold my own."

* * *

By the time Mr. Merriweather picked out a seventh candidate, Ella was starting to wonder if perhaps he was getting delusions of grandeur. Sure, he had spoken about minions, rather than family, but seven in one night?

He wasn't finished yet, either. By the time they drove back home, somewhat hurriedly to get inside before dawn, there were a dozen humans following their car.

"Are you really going to turn them all?" she asked Mr. Merriweather, looking behind her at the cars and bikes behind them.

Brushing the hair away from her face, he replied, "I thought we would all share in the fun."

That was a strange thought; Ella had never sired another vampire in her entire unlife. The idea of doing so was oddly appealing, but at the same time she had always assumed that if she were to sire someone, it'd be someone of her own choice, not someone her father picked out in an occult bar.

"There are so many of them," she murmured.

"We're up against the Slayer, darling," he said. "You're a smart girl. I know you know what that means."

"They're cannon fodder." She remained looking out the window, her eyes fixed on the dark windshields. "What if they survive?"

"If they survive the Slayer..." He silenced, and sighed quietly. "Well. Then they have rather earned their place in the family, haven't they?"

Dean snickered beside them, and Mr. Merriweather asked, "What's so amusing?"

"Them." He nodded towards the following cars. "Listen to them."

Both Ella and Mr. Merriweather listened. A cynical smile spread over Mr. Merriweather's lips. "They're young. They'll get over it."

Ella listened harder, trying to hear what they heard, but the noise of the motor drowned out all sounds from the other cars. She should be able to hear at least parts of the conversations from this distance, but there was nothing, not even a murmur of voices.

Mr. Merriweather noticed her consternation. "You can't hear them?"

She shook her head mutely, afraid to ask what it might mean.

His face grew concerned, and he stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. "Perhaps you hurt your head earlier."

"Yeah, when you were a baby!" Dean said cheerfully. Ella growled at him.

"Not now, Dean," Mr. Merriweather reproached him. "Your aunt is feeling ill."

She didn't really – just very dull and heavy, as if the entire world had been wrapped in cotton. That seemed bad enough.

"Do you think I'm really sick?" she asked her father. Her voice sounded small and quivering to her own ears.

"We're vampires," he reminded her. "We don't get really sick."

"You'll be all right," Dean assured her, patting her back. "You're just a bit shook up from that fight with the Slayer, that's all."

"I'm not weak," she said, irritated at his tone even though he was trying to be kind. She hadn't even been fighting the Slayer; she had fought that black minion of hers. The one who had killed Patience.

She pulled her cardigan closer around her chest and rubbed her arms. For some reason, her skin had started to crawl.

Jeremy pulled over by the house and stepped out. "Okay," he shouted to the humans, "last stop for the undead-to-be!"

The humans stepped out of their cars and off their motorcycles, floundering and wide-eyed, but clearly excited. Vampires leading the way, they all entered the house.

The disappointment among the humans was so palpable it was like a drop in temperature. A tall girl with black-dyed hair picked up the table cloth from the kitchen table, looking about to burst into tears. "You're not real vampires, are you?"

In reply, Mr. Merriweather grabbed her neck, and then changed into demon face so he could drink from it. There was a collective gasp from the humans. Ella positioned herself closer to the door, but even though some of the humans looked ready to bolt, none of them did – and some looked mesmerized by the blood-drinking business. Perhaps they might make good vampires after all.

"We are vampires," Mr. Merriweather assured the humans, taking a break in his meal. "You have a problem with that, start running... now."

There was a moment's pause, and then half of the humans bolted for the door. Ella grinned. He hadn't said a word about them escaping, and they weren't going to. She punched the fastest in the face as soon as he reached her, and while he was still reeling from the punch, she snapped his neck.

"Ella!" Mr. Merriweather chastised her. "We are meant to sire these people, not simply kill them."

"What, even the cowards?" she asked, looking with disdain at the shuddering crowd her nephews were in the process of rounding up.

"Even the cowards."

Well, he could have said that a little earlier. She picked up the boy, but of course he was already quite dead.

"Never mind that now," Mr. Merriweather said impatiently, "just eat the boy before he goes cold."

She obediently leaned in for the drink, but made a wry face when the caught the scent of the boy's clammy skin. "He smells like sweat and fear."

"Well, doesn't that make it even better?" Mr. Merriweather asked.

She shook her head and wrinkled her nose. He sighed and took the boy's body from her, briefly juggling two humans before hoisting off the groggy-but-living girl on her. "All right, I'll eat him. You turn this one."

Ella grabbed hold of the girl, who weakly tried to resist. She was quite feisty for a human; maybe she'd make a good vampire after all. Using her father's teeth marks, she sucked the blood out of the girl, and when she felt the pulse slow down, she drew her nail across her own chest. The skin was tougher than she had thought, but pushing harder, she managed to break it, and she gently placed the girl's mouth across the wound, making her drink.

"What are you doing?" Jeremy asked, utter contempt in his voice.

"Turning a human, like you all wanted me to," she snapped.

"You ought to be in demon face for that, honey," he said with a grin.

"Oh, what difference does it make?"

The girl in her arms shuddered and stopped breathing. Ella stared at her, baffled. Was this supposed to happen? Looking up, she found Jeremy giving her an insufferable grin.

"Eat shit, Jer," she told him.

She expected her father to chastise her for her language, but he didn't. Instead, he leaned the corpse he was drinking from against the wall and came over, taking the girl from Ella's arms. He lifted her eyelids, touched her neck, and finally lay her down on the ground.

"She's dead for now," he said. "It's too early to tell if she'll rise again." He regarded Ella with a puzzled expression that made her squirm. "Why didn't you wear your demon face?"

"It's so heavy," she complained, worried that she might have spoiled it all. "It's been heavy for hours."

Mr. Merriweather opened his mouth to speak, but just about then one of the people Dean was holding broke loose and tried to escape.

"We'll talk about this later," Mr. Merriweather said, punching the running human hard in the nose. "For now, I suppose it's best if you help rounding up the humans and leave the actual turning to us."

Ella sulked. She hadn't wanted to turn any humans in the first place, but being left out was even worse. Still, it was pretty obvious they needed her help. By now, even the humans who hadn't started running were looking a bit jittery.

Well, she sure as hell wasn't going to play babysitter for a bunch of freaked-out heartbeaters.

"Here," she said, shoving the most nervous-looking off on one of the few calm ones. "Make sure he stays for the rest of the party."

The calm one reluctantly grabbed hold of his fellow human. "Shouldn't this, like, be a voluntary thing?"

"It's just cold feet," Ella said between clenched teeth. "He'll change his mind again later."

The nervous one started crying and tried to break loose. The calm one held on, but not tight enough. Another minute and they'd have more humans running for the door. Ella sighed and slapped the nervous one so hard he sagged in the other guy's arms.

"Listen up, you fucking pathetic little heartbeaters!" she yelled. "I don't know what you thought you were in for, and I don't care. This deal is non-refundable. You either handle this with some sort of dignity, or you lose our eternal respect. But that's one eternity you're gonna have to face either way."

That didn't seem to calm the jittery ones down any, though one or two made some sort of attempt to pull themselves together. Jesus, they'd have a stampede on their hands any minute. That was what you got for bringing home cowards and trying to keep them alive.

Jeremy took the two he was holding and slammed their heads together. Both of them fell to the ground.

"Wow, that's so much easier," he said.

Ella shrugged. "I know."

Jer leaned down and slapped the humans lightly. When one of them flinched, he hauled her back up and bit her. Unconscious humans were more manageable, but for the turning bit, they needed to be able to drink.

And so Ella spent the next few hours punching humans unconscious, waking them up, and handing them over to the boys to turn. It was a fucking nuisance, and she was relieved that at least some of the humans seemed to have meant it when they'd volunteered to become vampires back in the club.

Unfortunately, their sincerity didn't stop them from being complete morons. After a while, the worst of the cowards had been knocked out or turned, and though it was becoming increasingly hard to tell who was unconscious and who was currently dead, at least Ella could have a moment to sit down and relax.

The last human waiting her turn sat down next to her – a woman with her skirt so long and tight that she'd have had no chance of running away even on an open field, much less in a crowded room. Then again, she didn't seem to want to.

"To think," the woman said in an awestruck voice, "in just a few more hours - immortality!"

"Yeah, well," Ella said, "I can still hear your heartbeat, so shut up."

The woman breathed out through her teeth – death would clear her of that habit – and sat quietly sulking for a while.

Ella watched as her father offered his bleeding wrist to a ginger-haired young man with a ponytail and a dorky cape. It was a travesty of what this moment was supposed to be about, but even so, she was starting to feel hot and bothered, and she wanted desperately to get laid.

With half of her family dead and the other half busy, it didn't look like that would happen any time soon. She suddenly missed Pearl. Of everyone in the family, Pearl had been the most accomplished when it came to having a good time, even if she hadn't been much good at anything else.

"You know," the human eventually said, "we're going to be sisters, so you might as well be nice to me."

Sisters? This one instead of Pearl? That was a laugh. And "nice" - hell, where did this people get their ideas about vampires?

"Actually," she said, "I'm going to be your great aunt. Dean has his eyes on you."

The human looked at Dean under her eyelashes, and he gave her a fanged grin. Suckers.

"He's cute," she said. "A bit young, though."

"He's old enough to be your grandfather," Ella said dryly.

"Oh." The woman pondered that for a while, and then asked, "So, how old are you?"

Had no one taught her that you never ask a lady her age? Spending eternity with this one would be a hoot. Then again, maybe they'd be lucky and the Slayer would kill her quickly.

"Old enough to be his," was all Ella replied.

Her eyes was still on Mr. Merriweather, watching him lay his new child down, blood still glistening on both their mouths. He was very careful crossing the corpse's arms over its chest, and even making sure that ridiculous cape was lying neat on the floor.

The affectionate gesture reminded her of her own awakening. She had been lying just like that, arms crossed, clothes arranged to fall prettily. Other vampires had been forced to dig themselves out of graves, but Mr. Merriweather would never have allowed one of his to be buried. She had died and come back to life in Mr. Merriweather's south parlour, and when she opened her eyes, the sheets of her coffins had still been white as snow. It was the best memory of her unlife.

The second best had come an hour later.

She gave Mr. Merriweather an impish smile. He smiled back, placed the corpse's ponytail over its shoulder, and came over to her.

"So," he said, his gaze moving from her to the woman beside her, "only one left."

"Oh, Dean wants that one," Ella said quickly.

Mr. Merriweather raised his eyebrows. "Dean wants her? Maybe Dean and I should have a talk about seniority."

"Let him have her," Ella said. "What's the harm?"

He smiled. "My little bird... you're not jealous, are you?"

She looked down.

"Good lady," he told the human, "I'm afraid I will not be able to see to your comfort personally. Rest assured that my grandson will be more than sufficient."

Ella met his gaze. His eyes were sparkling, but sincere. She smiled and stood up.

"Is it just you and me now, father?"

"Mm." He ran his hand through her hair. "I'm spoiling you. Then again, if you're ill, we probably ought to figure out the reason."

That wasn't exactly her idea of a good time, but she obliged, following her father to the hall.

"All right," he said, holding her shoulders gently as he guided her down onto a chair. "Show me your demon face."

Changing was so hard she feared she'd fail altogether, but she could feel her demon face coming forward very slowly, like putting on a pair of too-small stretch jeans. Once finished, she touched her face tentatively, making sure that the ridges and fangs were actually there. Feeling them under her fingertips, she relaxed - for all that her face hurt to put on, it still seemed to be in order.

Relaxing made it go away though – under her searching hands, her features rearranged themselves to smooth humanity once more.

"That's as far as you can hold it?" he asked her with a frown.

"I don't know. It hurts."

His face grew concerned, and he took his watch from his pocket. "The sun will be up soon. Once it is, Ella, there's something I need you to do. Something brave."

She didn't feel up to being brave, with everything that was going on, but she listened and nodded as he gave his instructions. They weren't so bad; it was the implications of what she was about to do that scared her.

They waited in silence, and when Mr. Merriweather glanced for the final time at his watch before putting it back in his pocket, Ella stood up and walked over to the door. She paused for a moment before cracking it open, but her hand was steady as she held it into the sunlight.

At first, it just felt warm. Kind of nice, even, like sitting in front of a fire. Then it started to tickle, and after that to itch. She watched her hand closely, but it didn't catch fire. It didn't even hurt very much.

"How long am I supposed to stand here?" she asked, increasingly nervous.

"Until it catches fire, as I said," Mr. Merriweather told her. His voice was level, but he couldn't fool her, not after all these years.

There was definitely pain now. "It's going red."

"Is it?" He sounded excited. "Show me."

She pulled her hand back, glad to have it out of the sun, and closed the door. Her skin smarted and was burned bright red. Looking closer, she found that it had started to blister.

Mr. Merriweather took her hand in his, looking puzzled and worried. "I don't believe it."

She flexed her aching fingers. "What does it mean?"

"A vampire would have caught fire," he said, running his thumb over the singed skin.

Her head whipped up. "I am a vampire."

He continued as if she hadn't said anything: "A human would have been unaffected. I don't know what that makes you."

"I'm a vampire!" she exclaimed, unable to believe that he would say such a thing. "I've always been a vampire - I mean, for hundreds of years! You know that! You made me!"

"For hundreds of years," he agreed, "but not anymore. Vampires burn in sunlight. We don't hurt from turning into gameface. The smell of fear and sweat entices us, it doesn't sicken us. Whatever you are, you're not a vampire."

"I am!"

He shook his head slowly and lay his hands on her shoulders. "No."

Horror and pain and the fatigue she'd tried to fight for hours got the better of her, and she burst into tears. It had been decades since she last did that, but Mr. Merriweather said nothing of it, simply fished a cotton handkerchief from his breast pocket and handed it to her.

She wiped her eyes and her nose and tried her very best to calm down. Crying was another sign of this insipid humanity that seemed to be creeping up on her, and she'd have none of it. She'd fight it until... until her first breath.

Oh hell. It wouldn't really come to that, would it?

"All right," she said, trying to keep her voice steady. "So resire me."

"What?" he asked, clearly taken aback.

"Make me a vampire again." She grabbed his arms hard, pulling him closer, and tilted her head up so her neck became visible. "You did it once before, you can do it again."

"No, I can't," he said in a low voice.

She pushed him away violently. "You can turn them, but not me? That idiot - " she jerked her head towards the inner room " - with his cape, he gets to be a vampire, and I don't?"

His voice was even lower as he replied, "I don't know how. You're not human, you don't have a pulse. Unless you go all the way back..." He shook his head, and his expression was so helpless that it terrified her.

That was when she completely lost it, pounding her father so furiously with both fists that he didn't have a chance to fight back.

"You can't do this to me!" she shrieked. "You promised me it was forever! Ten years you waited for me, or have you forgotten? Ten years, and then you killed them all, just for me..." Her voice quivered, and though she didn't want it, her fist uncurled and she stroke his cheek tenderly. "So I'd be all yours. And I was, wasn't I, Father?"

"You were," he said hoarsely. "I wish it could stay that way. But you're not the daughter I sired."

She tried to hit him again, but this time he was prepared and caught her hands.

"I hate you!" she yelled.

"Hate me all you like," he replied, holding her wrists tight, "but keep those nails away from me or I will stake you, child." He flung her aside, her head knocking against the wall in a dizzying blow.

Sounds were coming from inside, bewildered voices that told Ella the new vampires were awaking. Mr. Merriweather must have had heard it too, because he straightened his cuffs and moved to return to the others.

"You'd do well to remember one thing, Ella," he said, stopping for a moment in the doorway. "I am not the reason you're like this."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3  
Robin

* * *

There was a large ginger cat in the street outside Robin's home, meowing pathetically. Robin stopped outside the door, watching it. It wasn't a cat he had seen before around the neighborhood, and though the street was already dark he could tell that it looked pretty shabby, its fur all matted and its eyes runny.

He put his briefcase down and crouched down, calling, "Here, kitty, kitty!"

The cat, though still apprehensive, walked up to him, which told him that it must have had an owner at some point; true strays stayed away from humans if they could.

Its time as a pet was long since past, though. As it come closer, Robin found that it wasn't dirt matting its fur, but scabs of old wounds.

"Guess it's time for today's good deed," he said softly, stroking the creature's back. He felt the skin smooth out under his touch, wounds melting away into nothingness.

The cat made a surprised "mrr?" sound and stared at him with big yellow eyes.

"Enjoy," he told it. Strange, that this would be his power – to cure mangy little animals. Call in the amazing vet boy. All his life he had spent fighting, training, desperate to get his vengeance, and though he'd often wished for Slayer strength or speed, it never would have occurred to him to wish for something like this.

Well, the vengeance train had long left the station, and maybe it was time he reconsidered his position in life. It couldn't very well get any stranger.

If only he could have used his newfound ability on himself. His school day had been such an absolute nightmare that he'd actually sneaked a peek in the basement, but he'd found no seal. The kids' behaviour was only metaphorically hellish. Even so, it had been enough to give him a headache, and he felt tired to the bone. Perhaps he ought to stop hunting vampires on school nights.

He picked up his briefcase and unlocked the door. The cat tried to follow him in, so he was forced to gently prod it outside with his toe before closing the door. Healing strays was one thing, but he drew the line at making them house guests.

Once inside, he headed straight for the couch. He had a pile of paperwork to do, but if he wanted to keep his reputation as a competent principal, he really needed some shut-eye first. Faith would have needled him for it, said he was getting old, but it was easy for her to be resilient: a Slayer not responsible for anyone but herself.

Jesus, maybe he was getting old. He couldn't recall being this tired since his time in the hospital after Sunnydale. He started to kick off his shoes, but the crash of shattering glass made him freeze.

Someone was moving in the kitchen, causing a clinking sound. Still glass - they'd broken the window to come in.

Who had broken the window?

As quietly as he could, Robin opened his briefcase and took out a knife from the inner compartment, hoping it would serve. Judging from its steps, the intruder wasn't too big - either that, or it was very light on its feet.

He put his shoes back on and moved slowly towards the kitchen, alarmed when a slim and strictly female shape emerged from the shadows.

"Faith?"

But it wasn't Faith; he could tell that much even before she came closer. Then she attacked, and he found himself ducking the punches and kicks of a small, furious blonde. She was much stronger than she should be, but unarmed, and he managed to catch her in a grip around the neck, holding her chin up with his forearm and placing the blade of the knife above her collarbones.

"What are you?" he asked. "Why are you here?"

She recoiled – but not from the knife, he noticed. From his arm. "Don't touch me!"

What the hell? Something about this was very weird. And, it occurred to him, very familiar. The way she had fought... He tilted her head so he could see her face, and recognized one of the vampires from the night before.

"How the hell did you find my apartment?" he asked, tightening his grip. A thought struck him. "And how the hell did you get in?"

"The window," she said sarcastically.

He looked at the large hole in the window. "You weren't invited."

There was a slight pause, and then she said, "The Slayer invited me."

"The Slayer doesn't live here," he pointed out. "Also, she's not an idiot. How did you get in?"

She started struggling, despite the knife at her throat, but he was careful not to kill her. If the vampires had found a way to enter, he wanted to know what it was.

"All right!" she shouted at long last. "Nobody invited me; I don't know how I got in! It's all because you did this to me, now stop touching me before you make it worse!"

"What are you talking about?" he asked, bewildered, but even as he spoke, the pieces started coming together in his head. He was touching her naked skin, just like he had done the previous night, when he grabbed her neck during the fight. That time, it had been his burned palm against her skin, like with Faith a few minutes later, and the cat as he came from school...

"My God..." he breathed, stunned by the revelation. His grip must have loosened, because the vampire broke free and wrenched the knife from his hand, attacking him with it. He felt the edge of it sting his cheek as he ducked. A split second slower and he'd have been grinning with his neck.

He avoided another of her swipes with the knife. Though she was stronger than a human woman her size, she was weak and uncoordinated for a vampire – definitely worse off than she had been before. Physically, they were evenly matched now, but he had fought full-strength vampires twice her size and won. He knew his own body; she didn't know hers.

He kicked the knife out of her hand. It flew away across the floor, and he didn't bother to try and catch it. Instead, he kept kicking, harder and harder, until he lay still on the floor.

He took a step back, looking at the immobile body. She appeared to be dead, but then, she was a vampire, not a human. Well, sort of a vampire.

After a moment's thought, he backed away from her to his weapon cabinet and took out some chains,with an eye on the vampire in case she started moving.

She didn't, though, not even when he first attached the chains to her wrists and ankles and then hammered them to the wall. Once he was done, he gave her a long, hard look and finally knelt down beside her. If this didn't work, he had just furnished his home with a corpse, and he'd have hell trying to explain it to Faith next time she stopped by.

He put his hand on the vampire girl's head and, after some hesitation, moved it to under her shirt. He wasn't sure where the punches had hit, but head and torso seemed like a good guess. Her body was cool, and she had no pulse, but there was something else, something stirring... Without knowing quite how he did it, he pushed himself a little harder, reaching in to that something and trying to spread it out through his fingers into the rest of her body.

The vampire moaned and turned her head slightly too the side. Robin waited, but when she didn't move further, he shrugged and stood up.

The motion made his head spin and his knees buckle. Whoah. Clearly he should have known better than to try to fight a vampire while sporting a migraine. Then again, if he hadn't fought her, he wouldn't have a head in which to have a migraine.

He steadied himself against the wall and gave it some thought. The girl wasn't going anywhere, and if it was true that his touch was the reason she could enter uninvited, he didn't have to worry about any other vampires; the only other one he had touched, he had also killed.

Since he wasn't about to sleep near a vampire, chained or unchained, he went into the bedroom and once again kicked off his shoes before lying down on the bed. Thank God he was the principal; he could only imagine trying to explain to a boss why he was late with his work. 'I was attacked by a semi-human vampire, and then I took a nap.'

Life was so much simpler when you didn't have to lie to people. All he had to do was keep certain things secret, and that was okay. People expected the boss to keep secrets; it was a good image.

He closed his eyes, hoping half an hour of sleep would make him more alert.

* * *

Someone was shaking his shoulder, and he swatted them away, eager to stay asleep. After a while, the shaking stopped, and he buried his face in the pillow to escape the morning sun.

The blanket moved and a cool, smooth body eased in next o him. He rolled over, wrapping his legs against hers. Then his waking brain took over and thought, 'What if it's not Faith?'

He sat up abruptly, heart pounding, and Faith had to grab the mattress not to fall off the bed.

"Easy, cowboy," she said. "What's wrong?"

"I thought..." His mouth was dry, and he swallowed hard. "I thought you were someone else."

She lay down on her back, clasping her hands behind her head. "That girl in the living room?"

Faith had seen the vampire girl? Well, of course she had. The damned creature was chained to the wall. "You didn't set her loose, did you?"

"Nah. I figured, you chain a girl to the wall, she probably did something to deserve it." Faith must have caught something amusing in his expression, because a grin spread over her face. "Plus, she sneered and called me 'Slayer' in that menacing tone of voice. Dead giveaway. What is she, a demon? Your new girlfriend?"

"Vampire," he replied, lying back down. His heart was still pounding. "From the lair we took down. She's the one..."

"Who kicked you in the balls," Faith filled in. "I thought she looked familiar. Huh. You have a weird way of taking out your vengeance."

He had to laugh at that. "It's not vengeance. She came here to kill me."

Faith frowned. "And the reason you didn't kill her is..."

"That she came here to kill me." He turned his hand up, looking at the palm where the burned runes were starting to fade into brown. "I did something to her when I fought her, and whatever it was, it means she doesn't have to be invited. And she's furious about it."

Faith looked at his palm too. "You mean you... cured... her fanginess?"

"Altered it, in any case. It made me somewhat curious, as I'm sure you understand."

"Wow. Yeah. That's wicked!" She looked ready to jump him right then and there, and he had to admit, he was more than willing to go along with that plan. "So is she the reason you haven't returned my calls?"

"You called?" He glanced over at the phone and found it blinking.

"Only all morning. What, you thought this was a social call?" She sat up, and he figured his chance at wake-up sex was past. "The night before last, as you and I were out hunting vampires - actually, a few hours after that, but never mind - a bunch of lamebrains disappeared from one of those occult-slash-gothic clubs. They're not technically missing yet, 'cause you have to be away longer than that before you count as missing, but the morning papers have started asking the kind of questions that'll be headlines of satanic rites once the tabloids are out."

He sat up too, slowly. "And you're thinking it actually was satanic rites?"

"How should I know? But I am thinking that those bozos got in over their heads, and I doubt they're coming back... well, coming back alive, in any case."

"Okay." He reached for his pants and started thinking over their options. "I have to go to work, but tonight, we could... what?"

Faith stared at him. "You're going to work?"

"I usually do in the mornings," he pointed out.

"Yeah, but not at eleven thirty in the mornings."

"What?" He grabbed his watch, and she was right; it was almost eleven thirty.

"I assumed you'd called in sick. When did you go to bed last night?"

"Around nine," he said, still staring at his watch. How the hell had he slept for fourteen hours straight?

"Huh?"

"You said it." He kicked off the blankets and started putting on his pants. Half the day gone already; he might as well do as Faith suggested and call in sick.

Faith jumped off the bed and picked up the dress she had left in a pile on the floor, putting it back on.

"Maybe you really are sick," she said.

There was a concern in her voice that both touched and annoyed him. "I'm fine. I needed to catch up on my sleep, that's all."

He was telling the truth, or at least he hoped he was. He felt fine, and thank God for that. He had used to take minor illnesses with a philosophical calm, but after Sunnydale he hated being sick. Two months in a row was enough to last a lifetime, as far as he was concerned.

Faith dropped the subject and asked, "Want to go play with the vampire?" with a flirtatious smile.

It always unnerved him when she did that, connected slayage and sex as if it was all the same thing. He was reminded of Buffy, in the arms of his mother's killer and - if word was to be believed - another vampire before that. The mere thought disgusted him. But everything was about sex with Faith; everything and nothing, because he was fairly certain that she had never actually slept with a vampire, no more than grinding against the chairs every time she sat down meant she was prepared to have sex with them.

If he was wrong, he never ever wanted to hear about it.

"That's what I had in mind," he said, buttoning up his shirt and following her into the living room.

The vampire girl was sitting with her back to the wall, and gave them a murderous glance when they entered. "Come to gloat, Slayer?"

"Not at all," Faith said amiably. "I come to guinea pig you. You can enter uninvited. What else can you do?"

She could hardly have expected a reply, and indeed, the girl just scoffed and turned her face away.

Faith stepped up and slapped her, and then slapped her once again on the backswing. The girl growled at her, but contrary to Robin's expectations, she didn't go into demon face.

"Come on," Faith taunted her, slapping her again. "Talk to me, chica!"

The girl seemed to struggle with something, her face contorted in fury and pain. Finally she fell back against the wall, howling and sobbing.

"Well, well, well," Faith said in a low voice. "I guess we've found something you can't do." She leaned down, her neck inches away from the vampire. "Aren't you gonna bite me?"

The girl lunged at her, snapping her teeth towards the offered neck, but she kept her human appearance. Faith quickly moved back.

"She can't," Robin said slowly. "She can't change her face anymore."

"You made it worse!" the girl screamed in falsetto. "I told you not to touch me!"

"I was trying to keep you alive," he pointed out.

"I'm not alive," she yelled. "I shouldn't be alive. Kill me! Kill me or turn me back!"

"She's got a point," Faith said, watching the vampire girl with a frown. "You can defang vampires, and that's... well, awesome, but what are you gonna do with her? Keep her as a pet?"

Robin watched the vampire as well, trying to think. Short-term, he wanted to keep her around, try to figure out what effects his touch had on her and use that knowledge for future fights. Long-term, he definitely didn't want to keep a vampire as a wall ornament, but was she even enough vampire to be dusted anymore?

"I'm not sure we can kill her," he said. "She might leave a body. This isn't the kind of neighborhood where you can dump a corpse with a stake through its heart and think it won't be discovered."

Faith looked as if she was about to throw up. "Oh." She hesitated for a moment, and then asked, "D'you think she's got a soul?"

The girl's head whipped up. "I don't!" she hissed.

"She might," Robin replied.

"That's a filthy lie! I never did!"

"Uh, you kind of did when you were a human," Faith said, addressing the vampire.

"That was a phase."

"Riiiight." Faith turned back to Robin. "So, big vamp defanger. You gonna make this your new side gig?"

The idea had some merits. Unfortunately, it had some very obvious flaws as well. "What, and end up with a hundred half-vampires chained to my wall? I'd rather not. Maybe I should go down to the hospital – do some good."

"Oh, since when are you the big life-saver?" Faith scoffed, clearly disappointed. She sat down on the floor, legs akimbo, facing the girl. "Okay, since it seems you'll be our only treat for now, we might as well get to know each other. What's your name?"

The girl stared at Faith in sullen silence, and Faith slapped her hard. "Let's make a couple of things clear. I'm a Slayer. You're a defanged vampire. I can fuck you up like you wouldn't believe, so you might as well start talking."

The girl remained silent, immobile. Robin sighed. "Maybe I should try to turn her all the way human. It might make her more cooperative."

"Ella," the girl said immediately, her voice quivering with hatred. "It's Ella."

"Just Ella?" Faith asked. "Not Vampirella or Mariella or... Cinderella or something?"

The girl - Ella - didn't bother to answer.

Faith waited a while, and then stood up. "You handle the interrogation," she told Robin. "You seem to scare her more than I do anyway."

That was true, and it told Robin something about this Ella's priorities. She took pride in her vampirism, which meant there was a fairly good chance she'd already found the answers to some of their questions on her own.

"When did you first find out what had happened – what I'd done to you?" he asked, correcting himself as he spoke. "Right away?"

She sat quiet for a few seconds, but when he sighed and reached out to touch her cheek, she reluctantly replied, "I got tired. My face was heavy, and it hurt trying to put it on. I didn't know what was wrong with me. Father... made me hold my hand in the sun."

"And what happened?" Robin asked.

She held up one of her chained arms. The skin was reddish-brown and peeling. White girl's sunburn. Definitely not something he would ever have expected to see on a vampire. But unless she'd been holding her hand out for hours, no human should have been burned like that either, and somehow he couldn't see any vampire patient enough to force a minion to sit with her hand in the sun all day – provided the girl would even allow it.

"Did he try anything else?" he asked. "Stakes? Crosses?"

"Yeah," Ella said with disdain, "'cause we keep those around."

Robin clicked his tongue and went over to the weapons cabinet. He obviously couldn't take the risk of a staking, but he took out a small vial of holy water and a couple of crosses.

Faith's eyes widened at the sight, but Ella didn't move a muscle as Robin crouched down next to her and uncorked the water vial. Slowly, he dripped holy water down on the skin of her face and watched how tiny red spots blossomed and then faded, not unlike the effect of candle drippings on a human. Her expression didn't change; the pain was most likely slight. He tried pouring the rest of the vial's content in a heavier stream, and as her cheek turned red he noticed her scowl and the way she bit her lip. Yes. That hurt. But there was no hissing, no smoke or stench of burning flesh.

Curiosity peaked, he reached out to erase the burn and start afresh. She whipped her head back. "Keep your filthy healing hands off me!"

"I thought we agreed you were going to cooperate," he said, his voice silken.

She gritted her teeth and gestured with her chin towards Faith. "She can do it."

Robin contemplated staking Ella on the spot, corpse or no corpse. But if he did that, he'd never find out just what kind effect his touch had on vampires. He tossed the crosses to Faith. "Do you mind?"

"Not at all," Faith said, catching the crosses with ease. "I can torture her some for the team."

"It's not torture, it's experimentation."

"Fine. I can experiment some for the team."

She really could, too. He could tell that it bothered her, that some part of her brain thought of Ella as a young girl rather than as a vampire, but as she tried different spots to place the crosses and then moved on to testing other weapons and combinations, Robin was both fascinated and appalled to see her ingenuity. He remembered what Buffy had told him about Faith's past, and wondered what kind of experience had given her this level of skill. When she cut her own skin and let the blood drip into Ella's mouth to see her reaction, it was with a teasing lightness than was hard to stomach.

Half an hour later, they had determined that crosses, like holy water and sunlight, only caused a mild burn that was somewhat more damaging on sensitive areas. They had also found that Ella was slow and weak compared to other vampires, but that her "defanging" didn't seem to have slaked her bloodthirst. She still had no pulse, but Faith claimed she was getting warmer.

The existence or nonexistence of her soul was still undetermined.

Faith stood up and straightened her back. "I'm bored. Not to mention hungry. What do you say we get out of here?"

"I should call the school," he said. "And ideally a glazier, but... well, I guess that'll have to wait."

"Five minutes," Faith said. "I pick the place. None of those crappy vegetarian places."

"Okay," he agreed. "Just as long as there's at least one dish without meat."

* * *

Faith could be reasonable when she wanted to, and the deli she chose had several vegetarian items. She also only grumbled a little when Robin suggested that they'd take the hospital next.

"Okay," she said once they were standing in the emergency room. "Now what?"

Looking around, he had to admit it was a very good question. The room was full of people: sitting, standing, being wheeled in on stretchers. Some of them were bleeding, some were surrounded by doctors and nurses. He couldn't go around touching them all; he'd be kicked out for disturbing the patients.

The staff hurried by with a patient, yelling instructions to each other. The man on the stretcher looked pretty bad, but Robin knew no one would thank him for butting in. For the first time in his life, he was an actual super hero, and he felt utterly helpless. What he needed was somewhere he could work in peace.

"Palliative care," he told Faith in a low voice. "Let's find a lost cause."

"Good idea!" Faith said. "It's harder to fuck someone up if they're already dying."

She was joking, but even so, she had a point. How much did he really know about this power the sheath had given him? It had fixed Faith's hands, and the cat's fur, and it had turned an ordinary vampire into something else, but he had no way of knowing if all its effects were positive. He hadn't even been able to get in touch with the archaeologist.

They found the right corridor and, after trying a few doors, a room without visitors or nurses. There were two people in the room, both asleep or - more likely - comatose. One was a man, probably still young, but with a hollowed out face that made his age hard to guess. The other was an older woman, her face worn and wrinkly after a long life.

He should take the man first. He knew he should. But he stopped by the woman, taking in her appearance. Something about her reminded him of his mother, even though she was older not only than Mom had been when she died, but than she would have been now. She must be about Crowley's age, though she wasn't as well preserved as the old Watcher. She'd had a long life – if she wasn't fulfilled now, she never would be. He should start with the man.

"Are you going to do something or just stand there?" Faith asked, pacing the room.

He reached out, very slowly, and touched the woman's cheek. Her skin was thin and soft, hanging loosely from the bones.

This time, he could feel the disease inside her body, struggling against his touch and causing his palm to burn with pain. It was a dizzying experience, but he kept his hand still, knowing that if he stopped before he was done, he would only have stirred things up in the old woman's body and made it hurt worse.

"It's time to wake up," he told her softly, fighting the burn in his hand. "You can do it."

She didn't wake up. But as the sensation stopped, she took a deep breath and turned her head to the side, clearly at peace.

"I think it worked," Faith said in his ear, so close it made him jump. He had forgotten she was there.

He nodded at her comment. Like her, he thought it had worked.

His feet were a bit unsteady, and he sat down on the stool by the other patient's side, not sure he could manage to stand up after another ordeal like this.

In truth, he wasn't sure he could manage another ordeal like this, period. But he owed it to the man to try.

The pain was stronger the second time, but he got the distinct feeling that he wasn't the only one fighting. Unlike the woman, the man hadn't accepted defeat.

"That's it," he said. "Come on..."

There was no doubt of his success this time. The man's eyelids fluttered open, and his drowsy face had a puzzled frown as he looked from Robin to Faith. "Who...?"

Robin panicked. "We're not here. You... uh... you're still waking up. Just close your eyes and.. uh... give it some time."

Faith snorted with laughter, but the man must have been very drowsy, because he actually did close his eyes and gave Robin enough time to drag Faith out of the hospital room.

"We're not here?" Faith repeated once they were out in the corridor. "What the hell was that all about?"

Robin kept dragging her through the corridor until they reached an elevator and could get some privacy. Once in there, he pressed the stop button.

"I don't really care to become Cleveland's local miracle worker," he said. "If anyone in this hospital knows their job, that room is going to be swarming with nurses soon enough."

"And you think telling him, 'it's all a dream' is going to change that?" Faith asked, still laughing. "Give me a break. I don't even believe that stuff in fairy tales."

"Well, like I've told you," he said, "you're unusually cynical for your age."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." She leaned against the rail by the wall. "So, are you gonna start the elevator again, or do you want to have some fun first?"

There was no way he'd have sex in the elevator at a moment like this, but at least they were safe for the time being, and he let himself relax.

Unfortunately, that also meant that the fatigue caught up with him, and the world darkened for his eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4  
Faith

* * *

At first, when Robin rolled up his eyes and started sagging, Faith assumed he was just goofing around. Guys didn't faint because you suggested sex in public place - yeah, okay, so some guys might, but Robin wasn't one of them. But he went from sagging to actually sliding down on the floor in an ungraceful heap, and she realized that it wasn't a joke.

She dropped down on her knees and turned him face up, laying his head in her lap. There were lines in his face she had never seen before, making him look at least ten years older.

His eyes rolled back, and he moved his head in her lap. "What..."

"You passed out," she told him, and added with more heat than she would have preferred, "What the hell is happening to you?"

"I'm fine," he mumbled, sitting up. His movements belied his words – they were slow and awkward, as if he didn't know his own body.

"The fuck you are," she replied. "You look..." Her voice trailed off. She couldn't think of anything less than insulting to tell him.

"I look... what?" he asked.

"Well, let's just say, if you had hair I'm willing to bet it would have gone grey."

He stroke his hand across his scalp self-consciously. His hands were different too, she noticed. Bonier.

"You don't think you have what they had, do you?" she asked, suddenly scared for his life.

"What?"

She gestured up towards the corridor they'd just left. "Those people... what they had. Do you think you brought it on yourself?"

"No," he said dismissively right away, but then paused for a moment, considering her words. "No," he repeated after a while. "I don't think so. But it's... taxing. I won't deny that."

She helped him to his feet. "We got to investigate that sheath."

He nodded, clearly as shook up as she felt. "But how? I still can't get hold of my guy."

A couple of months ago, she would have suggested calling Angel. Even now, she had to remind herself that wasn't an option anymore before her brain came up with the next name: "Giles. He still has some resources, right? We could call him."

"Yeah," he agreed, pressing the button to start the elevator again. "Let's."

She stuck close to his side as they left the hospital. Part of her wanted to keep him there, get him examined, but he refused, and she supposed she could see why. He got out to the car no problem, moving just a little slower than he normally would, but he didn't argue when she demanded to be given the keys.

"You're gonna have to feed her," she told him as she drove through downtown Cleveland towards his home.

"Who?"

"Vampirella. If you really mean to keep her around, you'll have to feed her, and I very much doubt she'll be satisfied with tofu."

He scowled, causing yet more lines to appear on his face. Careful, she thought, you might get stuck like that... but the joke wasn't funny. Not right now.

"I suppose," he said. "So, where do we... pet shops?"

"Ew, gross!" she replied. "Butchers' shops sell blood."

"Oh. Of course."

"Pet shops?" she said with disdain, wrinkling up her face. "Sometime you really freak me out."

She was freaked out, but it had nothing to do with the pet shop suggestion. He must have known it too, because he glanced at her and then squeezed her knee gently. "It'll be all right."

"It'd better be," she replied, keeping her eyes on the road. She was afraid that if she looked at him right now, she'd lose it completely.

* * *

The apartment was freezing when they returned, light rain coming in through the hole in the kitchen window. It made Faith kind of miss Xander – he would have fixed the window in no time, paying little attention to the vampire in the living room.

Said vampire sat on the living room floor staring at the ceiling, and she looked more bored than anything else.

"It's cold," she told them, still staring at the ceiling.

"It gets that way when you enter through a closed window," Faith snapped. "And should you even notice? Do you, like, have a body temperature now?"

Ella took her gaze of the ceiling and met Faith's. "Fuck you," she said very clearly, "and fuck the broom you rode in on."

Faith had to grin. "She's got some balls, considering she's a tiny little thing I could kill in a heartbeat."

Ella leaned back with a self-satisfied smirk on her face. "You can't. You want to know what's happening to me."

"Actually," Robin chimed in, "We want to know what's happening to me. At least I do." He sat down heavily in an armchair. "But she's right. I need her for that. Plus there's the whole issue of leaving a corpse."

Was he looking even worse than he had at the hospital? Maybe it was just the way he sat down.

"I'm calling Giles," Faith said. She was almost relieved to have an excuse to take her attention off both of them. The weirdness factor was getting so high she was thinking of throwing that damned old sword and sheath away before it did more damage, but she knew Robin would nix that idea. No getting rid of the clues.

She still had Giles's number in her notebook. Angel's was on the same page – she'd never cared much for alphabetizing things. The old Hyperion number had been stricken out. She ought to do the same thing with the Wolfram and Hart one. It was ridiculous to keep it; the place was nothing but a pile of rubble, they wouldn't return there even if... and that was a pretty big if.

There was a pen by the phone in the kitchen, but she didn't pick it up. She needed to hold on to hope, about a great many things.

She dialled Giles's number and waited for someone to pick up. Buzz after buzz came through. What time was it over there? Not night yet, it couldn't be - and in any case, shouldn't he have voice mail or something?

A click in the other end was followed by a slightly whiny tenor voice that most definitely wasn't Giles's. Still familiar, though.

"Andrew?" she asked. "Weren't you in Rome?"

"Yeah, I just got back two weeks ago," he said. "Uh... who is this?"

"Faith. Listen, you got Giles there?"

"He's at a retreat."

She cursed. Of all the bad luck... "Well, can you get hold of him?"

"I can try. Hey, you can tell me what's going on. I'm in charge until he gets back. You could say I'm his number one."

Faith translated that in her head into 'I got stuck doing boring phone duty.' Like she wanted to get the input of a guy who used the word vampyre seriously. "Just tell him I called, and that it's kind of important."

There was a pause. "You know," Andrew said, "it'd be a lot easier if you just filled me in on the details. I can put the entire Justice League on it, and should you suffer a horrible death, there will be a witness to your final mission."

"I'm not gonna suffer a horrible death," she said irritably, but the little creep had a point about the other stuff - although, the what League? "Will you still call Giles?"

"The jungle drums will keep sounding until he gets here, I promise you."

"Okay, fine, whatever." She filled him in on the events of the past few days, detailing everything she could remember about the sword and sheath.

"And now he's all worn out and the vamp's chained in his living room."

"Wow." Andrew was quiet for a while and then asked, "Is he saving her soul?"

"Whose soul?"

"The vampyre's."

Faith held the phone away from her mouth and cursed to herself. Then she got back to Andrew: "No, he's not fucking saving her soul. She doesn't have a soul. At least I don't think she does, and even if she does, who gives a shit? I'm on a hellmouth here. Do you understand that? I'm on a hellmouth, and the guy who's supposed to be helping me out is... cursed, or something. I want to know what the hell is going on with that sword. Who made it, who owned it, why was it buried, and most of all, what's the deal with the sheath? Got that, infoboy?"

"I do," he said, sounding somewhat subdued. "But Faith, I'm not Luthor in this scenario of yours."

"And what does that mean in non-nerd speak?"

"I'm not your enemy."

"Then tell me who is," she said and hung up.

She remained by the phone for a few minutes to collect her thoughts, and Robin came out to her.

"Is everything all right?" he asked, wrapping his arms around his chest against the cold.

"Not really," she said. "Shouldn't you be lying down?"

"I'm not an old man yet, Faith," he said.

No, but you're getting there, she thought, though she didn't say it out loud.

"I couldn't get hold of Giles," she said instead. "Just Andrew playing Santa's little helper. Apparently he's doing number one in Watcher City now."

"Right," Robin said after a moment's pause, and his tone of voice was so very Robin that Faith felt a lot calmer.

It was raining outside now, and a gust of wind sent the rain spraying far enough into the kitchen for Faith to feel the drops on her face. She shook her head. "Jesus, that window..."

"Mm," he agreed. "We have to do something about it."

"Kill the vampire and call the glazier?" she suggested without much hope.

He smiled. "For now, I think we should just board it up."

* * *

It didn't have the neatness of a professional job – neither one of them was the handyman type – but together, Faith and Robin managed to get the window boarded up. Faith would have expected Robin to be exhausted by the effort, but on the contrary, he looked better than before. Maybe non-healing work was good for him.

Once they were done, Robin started another round of phone calls, trying to catch his archaeologist, and Faith headed out to find a butcher store. He'd left her his wallet, too, which meant she could take the opportunity to buy some fat, bloody, honest-to-god meat. A fridge just didn't look right with no meat in it.

The first place kosher, which meant no blood. To Faith's mind it was as bad as vegetarianism – what was the point of eating meat if you were going to be all choosy about what kind it was and how it had been prepared? People were way too picky about food. She could still remember the appalled look on B's face once she realized that as far as Faith was concerned, 'I could eat a horse' was not so much a saying as an unrealised opportunity. If she was hungry, she'd eat pretty much anything as long as it was cleaned, chopped up, and cooked.

"Cannibalism included?" Robin had asked when she explained her food philosophy to him, and she had given it a good thought and come to the conclusion that no, cannibalism excluded unless it was really an emergency.

She still preferred the traditional stuff, though, and when she found the right place, she skipped all the fancy stuff and got bacon and ground beef along with her bags of blood.

When she got back to Robin's place, there was a ginger cat walking to and fro in front of the building. It was a huge fucking thing, but as she came closer she could see that the size was all bone - it had clearly been a while since it was last properly fed. It was pretty for a stray, though, fur gleaming and head held high.

Faith wasn't very fond of cats, especially not stray beggar cats, but the damn animal tried to follow her inside, and she put her bag down, taking a handful of the ground beef and tossing it towards the cat. "There you go, you dumb cat," she told it. "Satisfied?"

The cat was very clearly satisfied, because it sat down crouched over the meat, eating with a deep, almost religious concentration.

Faith grinned - there was some kind of weird pleasure in seeing someone really enjoy their food, even if it was just a stray cat - and picked her bags up, heading inside.

Ella perked up considerably when Faith passed her in the living room. "You smell like blood," she said, stretching her chains to get closer.

"I do," Faith said. "Be a good girl and maybe you'll get some."

Ella made a begging sound in the back of her throat and stretched her chains even further, trying to lick Faith's hand.

"Back off, Vampirella," Faith said, kicking her in the stomach. "I'm not your lunch today. Jesus, you're worse than the cat!"

"What cat?" Robin asked, coming out from the kitchen. He looked better than before, and a bit happier too.

"There was a cat outside," Faith said. "I fed it some ground beef." She caught Robin's grimace and asked, "What? Bad move?"

"Oh, no no no," he hurried to reassure her. "Just as long as you're prepared to keep doing it. You feed a cat, it tends to come back and ask for more."

"Kind of like guys."

"I'll take your word for it," he said dryly, walking up to look in her bag. "Why do you have ground beef anyway? Trying out a new diet for the vampire?"

"Ooh, good idea!" she said. "We ought to try that later. But no, the meat's for me."

He took the bag from her and moved the bags aside. "Bacon too? You bought this with my money?"

"Well, yeah. I come here to work, you can't expect me to do it fasting."

"No, but I'd expect you to buy something I could eat too," he said. "I don't think I'm obliged to supply you with meat."

"I'm not obliged to pick you off elevator floors," she said, giving him a wide grin. "It's called friendship."

"I'm not feeling very friendly right now," he said, taking a slice of thick, white-rimmed bacon from the bag and scowling at it. "I suppose you want to use my frying pan, too?"

"Don't be so anal," she said, taking the bacon from his hand. "You could use a bit of fat on your bones, especially if you're going sick."

"Speaking of which," he said, "I finally got in touch with Hanlon."

She tried to remember who Hanlon was, but drew a blank.

Robin seemed to realize this, because he continued: "The archaeologist."

"Oh! Right. The thief." Even now that she was back on the straight and narrow, thief sounded better to her than archaeologist. "What did he say?"

"It's definitely from a Viking grave. Three people buried, one of them a woman - I'm thinking that's our Slayer. Judging by the state of the bones, they all died in battle."

Sounded like a Slayer, all right - she'd never heard of one that died of natural causes. "Anything on the sword?"

"I'm getting there. They have a translation of the runes - well, part of a translation. The sword says 'Blessed be the killer of evil.' "

"Slayer," Faith filled in, and Robin nodded.

"Slayer. The sheath was apparently harder to decipher; all they could read was 'ik liuuse konu.' Hanlon's guess is that 'konu' stands for 'konung' and 'ik' is the last part of a name, like Erik or Patrik. In which case it would mean 'something-ik, the light King.'"

"Huh." She mulled that over. Weird that the sheath would speak of a king. Maybe they had been wrong to assume that the sword belonged to a Slayer - but it made so much sense, with the small hands and the woman in the grave. Still, it told her one thing for sure. "So it's definitely blessed then, not cursed."

"Ninety percent," Robin said with a half-shrug. "There is an alternative interpretation of the sword's inscription as 'the evil killer,' but Hanlon and his colleagues - former colleagues, I guess I should say - found that very unlikely. Apparently the design suggests goodness; don't ask me how."

"Yeah!" Faith said, happy about the good news, swinging her hips in a half-dance as she proceeded into the kitchen with her butcher's bag. "I'm taking that sword out for a spin tonight. It'll be a blast!"

She was rather sad that night was still so far away.

* * *

Robin made Faith use a rickety old frying pan with a cracked handle to fry her bacon and ground beef, which was pretty lame, but at least he stepped out of the kitchen after that and let her do her thing.

She reappeared in the living room with a tray where she'd put a plate of fried bacon and meat, a plate with it raw, the blood bags and a pair of scissors.

Robin, who was watching the news, looked up and grinned. "You look like the hotel breakfast from hell."

"Yeah, well, that's not so far off the mark," Faith said, sitting down on the floor opposite Ella but some distance away. She put one of the crispy slices of bacon in her mouth and reached another to Ella. "Here you go, Vampirella, eat up!"

Ella wrinkled her nose. "It smells like burned flesh."

"You got that right," Robin said. He left the sofa and sat down next to Faith, though he kept the TV on in the background. His face was serious, but there was something in his eyes that suggested that he was very amused by the situation.

"It's not burned," Faith said, moving her hand back and forth, like she wanted to coax Ella to take the food. "It's crispy."

"It's gross," Ella said, turning her head.

Faith slapped her. "Eat!"

"It doesn't prove anything if she does," Robin pointed out. "Vampires can eat if they want to."

Ella reluctantly opened her mouth and let Faith slide in the slice of bacon.

"It proves something if she can taste it," Faith said, recalling something Angel had said. She watched how Ella's expression went from hostile to apprehensive to disgusted. Oh yeah, she could taste it all right. Pure moral outrage couldn't cause a grimace like that.

"Ith'sh foul!" Ella exclaimed, clearly trying to avoid touching the food with her tongue as much as possible. Finally, she just spat the bacon out on the floor.

"Experimental result: defanged vampires do not like bacon," Faith said, laughing a little at the way Ella stretched out her tongue to get rid of the taste. She scooped up a spoonful of ground beef to try next, but Robin halted her hand.

"Give her some blood in between."

"Why? I was going to save that for last."

"She still tastes the bacon. If you really want to know what she likes or not, let her rinse her mouth."

"Mostly, I just want to see her make those funny faces," Faith said, but she cut open one of the blood bags and fed Ella a mouthful. The vampire drank greedily, and if it bothered her that the blood was animal rather than human, she didn't show it.

Faith snatched the bag away before Ella had time to finish it, and handed her some of the ground beef.

"No," Ella said with great determination.

Faith slapped her, but Ella pinched her lips together and turned the other way.

"Don't be a baby," Faith said with a sigh. "We got a room full of weapons and a healer. You've got nothing, and you're only gonna get hungrier. You know you'll eat sooner or later, so it might as well be now."

There was a pause, and then Ella said between clenched teeth and barely moving lips, "The pink stuff."

"What?"

"I'll eat the pink stuff. Not the burned."

Faith felt an increasing appreciation for the good old 'take no prisoners' approach, but she put the fried meat back on the plate and scooped up some raw instead. Ella reluctantly opened her mouth and ate it, chewing slowly and thoughtfully. It was like feeding a kid, and Faith wondered what was up with vamp chicks acting like children. It didn't matter how long they'd been around, or how old they had been when they were turned. She'd seen scabby old vamps with childish pouts and cooey little voices.

Was it an act, or did some people go all retarded when they became vampires?

"Can I have my blood now?"

Faith stared at Ella; she'd half forgotten what they were doing. The vampire had eaten the whole spoonful of ground beef and not complained about the taste even once. Huh.

"Did you like it?"

Ella gave a half-shrug. "It was chewy."

"Chewy bad or chewy good?"

"Chewy chewy."

Faith fed her the rest of the bag of blood, thinking of asking her why she couldn't act her age, but she doubted she'd get much of a reply.

She was starting to get bored with this whole feeding situation. Robin clearly already was, because he had headed back to the TV and stood watching the news. A frown was forming on his face, and Faith realized why when she started listening to what was said.

'...There is no evidence to support that rumour. By the state of their homes, all or most of the missing people had every intention to return there.'

'So the police have definitely ruled out a mass suicide?'

'At this point, we cannot rule out anything.'

'Is it possible that the missing are still alive?'

'Very much so, in which case we urge them to contact their families as soon as possible.'

The news report went on in the same style, trying to make the most of what was basically a whole bunch of people saying 'we have absolutely no idea what has happened with these schmucks.' Faith clicked her tongue.

"Think they'd appreciate it if we told'em these guys are probably in some demon's stomach by now?"

"Or vampire's," Robin said. "No. Still, we have to investigate this, even if I very much doubt anyone will ever see those stupid kids again."

There was a glimmer of something smile-like on Ella's face, and Faith narrowed her eyes.

"What are you looking so smug for?"

Robin caught on quickly and his face hardened as he quickly moved over to them. "What do you know?" When he didn't get a reply right away, he barked, "Tell me!"

The vampire's face got an innocent expression that was utterly unconvincing.

Robin didn't ask twice. Instead, he walked over to the weapons cabinet, and his hand hovered over a cross for a second before he chose a small knife instead. The brief hesitation gave Faith time to realize what he was about to do and remind herself that it was only a vampire, not a person. Still, when he returned and plunged the knife into Ella's thigh, Faith saw a seedy demon bar, a girl stoned out of her mind, and a grim-faced Englishman. From there her mind's eye wandered even further, and she saw herself cut and punch, taunt and threaten, not to get information, just to see the pain and to know that she wasn't the only one feeling it.

She didn't flinch or turn her head. It was only a vampire.

"You know what happened to those people, don't you?" she asked, crouching down. There were tears of pain in Ella's eyes, but she didn't say anything.

Faith put her hand over Robin's, braced herself, and twisted the knife. This wasn't about pleasure and pain, but the dead and the dying.

"You trying to protect your friends?" she asked. "'Cause I have a feeling they don't give a shit. They've left you out in the cold, haven't they? You're not vampire enough for them."

Ella's eyes didn't meet hers – they were entirely focused on Robin, who closed his fingers around the handle of the knife and slowly pulled it out.

"Ella," he said, putting his bare hand on the wound. His voice was gentle but commanding, and Faith wondered if this was what he sounded like in school, trying to talk sense into nasty little teenagers. It would have been nice to have a Robin Wood back when she went to school. Not that she thought it would have made any difference. It'd just have been something nice to remember.

There was a moment's silence. Ella chewed on her lip, scowling. Faith was holding her breath, and she suspected Robin was, too, since the room fell so silent.

"They're turned," Ella finally said in a low voice.

"All of them?" Robin asked, not much louder.

She nodded, then shook her head. "Two died. But all the others."

"When?"

"Same night you came for us."

"Not wasting any time, are they?" Robin mulled over her answer. In the unlit room, the lines on his face deepened with shadows and made him look ancient. Suddenly fearful, Faith glanced down and found his hand still resting on Ella's leg. She snatched it away without thinking. The pant leg was torn, but underneath there was no wound, not even any blood.

"Don't," she said, even though it was too late.

He followed her gaze, but it was impossible to tell if he had kept his hand still for so long on purpose or if he had just forgotten.

Ella hadn't forgotten, that much was clear. Her blue eyes were wide with fear, and when Robin calmly continued to ask her questions, she answered each one readily, without any more complaining or lies. She gave directions to their main nest so detailed Faith could have drawn a map with her eyes closed, and she'd never even been to those streets.

She'd heard somewhere that torture was a lousy investigation technique, that the victim would just tell you what you wanted to hear whether it was true or not. But she could bet her ass Ella was telling the truth; either that, or she was a hell of a good liar, a lot better than she looked.

"You think you can find it?" Robin asked Faith.

"You're not coming." It wasn't a question; she knew he wasn't and why, and she was only grateful he knew it too.

"Not today."

Some sort of self-preservation stopped them from voicing the reason, but she couldn't stop herself from saying, "You'll be all right, yeah?" though she did manage to sound flippant.

A smile tugged at his lips. "That's my line."

"Oh, baby, I'll be better than all right," she said, standing up and looking around the room. "I'm gonna take that old Slayer sword with me, and me and her are gonna kick some serious ass together."

He started to frown, but the frown smoothed out again and he nodded. "I bet you will."

* * *

One thing Faith really really hated was vamps living in fancy places. They were dead, for fuck's sake, they had no right to have better living arrangements than humans. That was how she'd been able to stand the motel rooms and seedy apartments since being called - at least it was better than a grave. Hell, even the prison cell had had TV.

But shit like this house made her feel like her place was a dump even though it was the best place she'd ever had. It made Robin's place seem like a dump, especially now that the kitchen window was boarded up and there was a vampire shackled to the living room wall.

This... this was a home. Bay windows, frosted glass on the porch, and a garden that would probably have been full of flowers if anyone in the house had been alive enough to give a shit.

It was stupid, but she felt offended that there weren't any flowers.

Another thing made it different from a human's home too: the curtains were drawn for all the windows. Good thing they hadn't boarded them up; this time she had easy escapes ready if she needed them. Thirteen to one wasn't the kind of odds she liked even in daytime.

Well, thirteen to two. The sword felt damned nearly like a person of its own, and she held onto it harder as she tried the door. Locked, but thin - after a few kicks and some hacking with the sword, she was through to the other side. She hadn't been able to keep it quiet, though. They were bound to know she was coming.

There was no one in the hall, but she left the door open just in case as she moved further into the building, glancing into rooms as she walked by. A kitchen to the left, with empty but well-cleaned shelves. Someone was a neat freak.

Moving through the house, she could hear no sounds except of her own feet. Vampires could move very slowly if they wanted to, so the question was, were they still asleep, or were they waiting for her somewhere?

She caught sight of a movement at the top of the stairs and quickly looked up. For a split second, she saw the yellow glimmer of eyes in a gameface, and then the vampire ran in the other direction, so fast that Faith couldn't even tell its sex or the colour of its hair.

She ran after up the stairs and into a corridor, sword held high.

A loud slam made her start and spun around, catching now what she didn't the first time: that the corridor was a closed one, with only a small ledge connecting it to the stairway. A ledge that was now out of sight, since the vampire that had been hiding behind the door had now slammed it shut. He gave her a gleaming smile.

She slowly turned back. Vampires were coming out of every room. There weren't a dozen of them yet, but she had no doubt that soon there would be. Trapped like a mouse and she'd rushed straight into it without even thinking. Damn it! She could see B's little scowl of so many years ago, accusing her of being reckless... and for good reason.

The vampire in the middle - the one that had been prattling on back in the other nest - smiled at her. "Slayer."

"Sucker," she replied and attacked. Two other vampires immediately stepped up in front of him, and her sword cut one of them, slicing his arm almost clean through. Vampires were softer than humans, spongier, but even so the force of her blow surprised her.

The other vampire grabbed hold of her left arm, and she swung the sword around, hacking off his head. Sweet. She loved this sword!

But no matter how great it was, it could only strike in one direction at a time, and the vamps just kept coming at her. She kicked and elbowed and slashed and hacked, but there was always at least one out of reach. She started counting the clouds of dust, just to feel that she was getting somewhere: one, two, three, four... Yeah, she was thinning out the herd, but she wasn't so sure it would matter in the long run.

There was something else, in the back of her head. Each time she cut the sword through vampire flesh, some other kind of demon flashed behind her eyes and gave her a strange urge to turn around and see if perhaps that creepy crawly thing was right behind her. It was like she was fighting two battles at once – like she was two people at once – and the only upside was that she was pretty sure the other her was a pretty kick-ass fighter too.

Well, she sure as hell wasn't going to lose to a bunch of fledgling vampires and their stick-up-his-ass sire. She increased his efforts, using strength she was pretty sure she didn't have, and managed to drive her sword through two of them at once. The blow made her lose her footing, and all three of them stumbled through a doorway. She would have fallen straight onto them if they hadn't dusted; as it was, she landed with her hands and knees on the floor.

Vamps swarmed behind her, and she felt a familiar sting of pain in her back. One of the little fuckers had stabbed her. If she didn't get up fast, she'd be dead in minutes.

She forced herself to her feet and faced the vampires, realizing as she did so that she was in a room, an actual room with a window facing the street. She wouldn't last long against the vampires now, but she didn't have to – all she had to do was draw the curtains, or get the hell out, or preferably both.

She'd have to do it fast, though, before the vamps were all around her again. No point attacking the ones by the doorway; more would just come up behind them. Instead, she furiously slashed at the vamp coming up on her right side and then quickly spun around to strike another blow to the one on her left. Only one of them dusted – her aim was off. Still, it bought her some time, and she used it to start running. The window was only maybe ten feet off, but it felt like a fucking ballroom as she desperately tried to get the pace up.

She felt as if she was going excruciatingly slow, but when she hit the window it broke, and she fell to the ground taking the curtain with her. The heavy cloth and the pain prevented her from moving properly, and her back hit the ground hard, knocking the breath out of her.

Her eyes blurred with tears of pain, she looked up at the sky, shining in pink, blue and yellow. Sunset. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to relax for a second, though she was still gasping for air. Pretty soon, she'd have to start moving or this stunt would have been for nothing, but at least she was safe for the moment.

When her lungs started working properly again, she slowly disentangled herself from the curtain and stood up. She could see her bike at the corner, and she was pretty sure she could still drive it, even if her head was spinning a bit.

Reaching up, she touched her back and then stared at the red stain on her hand. Okay, gotta deal with that. Hospital? But she couldn't bring the sword to a hospital, not even if she wrapped it in the curtain. People were bound to ask questions or try to take it away.

Which left only one option, really. Wrap herself up – and get back to Robin.

"Fucking hell," she muttered to herself.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5  
Robin

* * *

The sun set without Faith coming back, but Robin wasn't very concerned; he figured she had probably decided to go on patrolling the local cemeteries. It would have been nice if she could have called him, but Faith was Faith, and it was unlikely the idea had even occurred to her. He tried doing a bit of paperwork - being away from the school didn't mean he could slack off - and when his concentration failed him, he sat down with a mystery novel.

People passed by the door and he listened with half an ear as he tied together the clues concerning the body in Mr. Thipps' bathtub. It was an intriguing mystery, and the only one by that author he hadn't read before.

A series of slow, dragging steps were followed by the sound of a key in his door. That did make him concerned – more than concerned, downright worried. He put the book down and hurried out into the hallway, just as Faith came through the door. Her face was sickly pale and her hair damp with sweat.

"What happened?" he asked, putting his arm around her shoulders to support her. "The sword, did it..."

"The sword was great," she said, slurring slightly. She lifted her right hand, which held a long object wrapped in dark velvet. "I love the sword. I couldn't have done it without her."

"Then what...?" The thought that she might be drunk turned up in his head, but he rejected it. Even if she'd be reckless enough to drink on the job, Faith had a high tolerance for alcohol.

"Little thing called the odds," she explained to him. "Can't always beat them."

Suddenly cold, he grabbed her around the waist with both hands and started feeling his way around, until he got to the sticky spot on her back, clumsily tied up with the same kind of cloth she'd used for her sword.

"You drove back home with a wound like this?" he asked. "You need an ambulance!"

"Couldn't bring the sword," she mumbled. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry? Faith, you could die from this." He should have been there to help – and then he remembered why he hadn't been, and realized why she apologized.

Slowly, he started unwrapping her makeshift bandage so he could reach the wound beneath.

"It's all right," he told her. "I'll help you."

"You shouldn't have to..." she started, and he didn't know if those were tears in her voice or if it was just lack of oxygen.

"Hey," he said. "Let me be the good sidekick here."

"You my Slayerette now?" she asked him, smiling slightly.

"Damned right, I am."

Compared to the patients at the hospital, treating Faith wasn't so bad. The wound was serious, and bleeding profusely, but at least it was just one wound and not a whole body full of illness.

"There," he said when he was definitely done. "Feeling better?"

"Lots," she replied, wrapping her arms around his neck. The color was starting to come back in her face already. "Forget the sidekick gig. You're my hero."

She had a wicked smile on her face, but her voice was serious, and when she leaned in to kiss him he could taste salt on her lips.

Her concern excited him, and he returned the kiss with fervour, pinning her against the wall. He was a patient man, and he particularly enjoyed taking his time with Faith, who was still a novice when it came to the more slow-moving aspects of sex. But slow and soft wasn't the same thing, and they both liked variation. A full scale of crescendos and diminuendoes, he'd told her once, and she gave him that blank look and "huh" that reminded him that despite everything she'd done, she was just a kid – and a kid who had gone to prison instead of college, no less.

He grabbed her wrists hard and teased her face with light kisses, the shadow of lips touching her skin.

"You wanna do it right here?" she asked him.

"Let's start 'doing it' here," he said, "and keep 'doing it' in every..." he followed the inside of her arm with his thumb "...single..." scratching her with his fingernails "...room."

"In front of the freakovamp and everything?"

"You got it," he said, releasing her and gently nudging her towards the living room door.

She raised an eyebrow. "Cool."

* * *

They had only reached the door to the bedroom when he felt himself soften. He drew back, bewildered. It couldn't be... not since his teen years... and with Faith of all people! But it was.

"What's wrong?" she asked, her voice husky and breathless.

"Nothing," he said firmly, returning his attention to her, using hands and mouth to make up for what was failing him.

Faith was no fool, though, and she'd have to be pretty oblivious not to notice what was going down, especially when she arched her hipbone, grinding it against him.

A puzzled frown flew over her face, and she drew back like he had a minute before. "You..."

"Shh," he said, and with a wry smile added, "There's more than one way to skin a cat."

"But you're..." Her eyes were widened with disbelief and horror. Hardly the most flattering situation in which he'd ever found himself. "It's my fault, isn't it?"

"Your fault?" He wouldn't have expected Faith to have insecurities about her performance.

As it turned out, that wasn't what she meant at all. "You healed me. Every time you do that, you go more... you know... worn."

It was true, and it frightened him, especially since he couldn't think of an alternative. Never dressing another wound? That wasn't a very realistic option, considering their lifestyle. And through the fear, he felt an increasing irritation that this moment should be ruined by actions he couldn't take back even if he tried.

"I'm not too worn to wear you out," he said, his lips touching her ear.

"What if it doesn't take a wound? What if just touching...?"

The thought made him freeze for a second, but once his brain had caught up with his fear, he shook his head. "Touching isn't enough."

"How do you know?"

"I know." He couldn't describe it to her, how differently his body reacted to her hot, smooth skin from when it was clammy and bleeding. He twirled strands of her hair around his fingers and tugged very slightly. "Trust me, I know."

Faith turned her head very slowly in his direction, a thoughtful expression on her face. "I want ice cream."

"Now? Instead of sex?"

"Yeah, instead of sex. Idiot. On you."

"Ah." He kissed her, and then replied, "I don't think I have any ice cream."

She gave a sharp, short laugh. "I should have known. You heathen!"

"I have maple syrup."

She thought about that. "Okay, it'll have to do. You're still a heathen, though."

"Don't I know it." He had to smile at her tone – she was still a teenager in some ways. Even so, he found it comforting to be called a heathen; it brought back memories of heated but friendly discussions in Crowley's kitchen. He had been an obnoxious, know-it-all boy, and Conchita had scoffed at him. Do you think the good Lord answers to you, Robin Wood? I thought he answered to everyone. Ha! He'd have his work cut out answering questions from silly little boys! Isn't the Lord supposed to be almighty, Conchita?

He suddenly found that he missed her, missed having someone around who believed in an almighty Lord who would set everything right. He certainly couldn't believe it himself.

* * *

He woke up in the middle of the night feeling like something was squeezing his heart. His initial, fearful thought was 'heart attack,' and then the rational part of his brain chimed in to tell him that 'anxiety attack' was a much more likely explanation, though he didn't know what would cause the anxiety. If he had dreamed something, he no longer remembered it.

He stumbled out of bed, barely able to stand and wondering why it felt like his head was on fire. Touching his scalp, it felt normal against his skin, though he was startled to see how gnarly and thin his hands looked in the moonlight.

The sensation of fire spread, dug in under his skin, aching and itching until it drove him crazy. He clawed at his skin, trying to rid himself of the feeling. Bugs, it had to be bugs, but what kind of bugs and how did you get rid of them? Maybe he could wash them away. He had to get to the bathroom.

His legs were shaking, and he wished desperately for Faith to wake up, but the weight on his chest made him breath in short, painful gasps and he couldn't find his voice.

Somehow he managed to make his way into the bathroom, where he climbed into the tub without even bothering to take his pajama pants off. Turning the water on, he let it stream down over his head and body, scrubbing and scrubbing until the water running down the drain had a tinge of pink.

It helped, though. The fire faded into an itch. His heart was racing, but at least that meant he could feel its beat.

He sat down in the tub, leaning his back against the wall and taking deep, shaky breaths. Okay. The worst was over. He could simply sit here, enjoy the warm water, and never move another inch in his life. It was just actually getting up from the bathtub that was unthinkable.

The next thing he knew, Faith was shaking him and yelling curses at him, some of him he didn't know the meaning of despite ten years of teaching high school.

"Calm down," he said. His voice sounded croaky and slurred to his ears, and he was shivering from the still-running water that had ceased to be warm. "And stop... ow!... stop banging my head against the tub."

She let go of him, but kept yelling, her voice so high-pitched it almost cracked. "I fucking knew something was wrong, you motherfucking piece of shit! But you just had to keep your head so far up your ass the shit came out through your mouth! 'Oh, never mind me, I get cursed by old Vikings every day!' And why the hell did you even touch that stupid cunt!"

"The only cunt I've been touching is yours," he said, trying to sit up. "And I'm not cursed."

"Oh, right," she said sarcastically. "And what the fuck is that?" She pointed towards his face. "Extreme Makeover: Backwards Edition, designed to make you look a hundred years old?"

The shivers were growing so badly that his teeth were clattering. "What are you talking about?"

For a moment, Faith only stared at him. Then she hauled him out of the tub and positioned him in the middle of the floor. He swayed, but managed to remain standing without grabbing hold of the basin.

Beyond the basin was the mirror door of the bathroom cabinet, and despite Faith's words, it took a while before his brain made the necessary connection between the face in it and his own.

"Jesus," he said, lifting a shaky hand to his face. The touch confirmed what his eyes were telling him – deep, leathery wrinkles that belonged to someone old enough to have seen both world wars. He took his hand down and gave it a good look while he was at it. If it had looked gnarly in moonlight, there was no doubt now to what it was: the hairy, withered hand of an old man. "It's sucking the life out of me."

"Still think you're not cursed?"

He shook his head slowly. 'Curse' seemed an adequate word for what had happened to him, but what kind of person cursed someone - a random someone - by making him a healer and then waiting to see how the gift saved others and killed himself? It was an absurd idea. Curses were... giving people smallpox or turning them into amphibies. Not this.

"It doesn't make any sense," he said.

"We're on a hellmouth," she said bitterly. "It doesn't have to make any sense."

The room started spinning in front of his eyes, and he grabbed the basin with both hands. "Faith..."

"I got you," she said, laying her arm around his back, and he hadn't heard her voice so soft since the destruction of Sunnydale. She couldn't have been any more obvious about the fact that she thought he was dying.

Well, she'd been wrong once before.

He leaned into her as she dragged him from the bathroom to the living room couch, where she proceeded to take his clothes off. He marvelled at the strength of a slayer, how her slim little body held more power than his own ever would. Any other day, that would be a challenge for him to match that power, teach her a thing or two. Today, he was both grateful and humiliated to find himself undressed and wrapped in a blanket like a baby.

Ella watched them with interest from her spot by the wall and commented with some glee, "He looks like death warmed over."

Having seen himself in the mirror, Robin had to admit that the spiteful statement held more truth than he would have liked. But considering that she was their prisoner, he couldn't very well blame her for being tactless.

"Shut up or I'll stake you right now!" Faith hissed, sounding so vicious Robin expected her to whip out a stake on the spot. Instead she sat down by his side on edge of the couch and asked, "Do you have the number of the archaeologist?"

"Hanlon? Yeah. But I don't know how much help he'll be. He's no expert on magic." Robin gave a breath of laughter. "He's not even much of an archaeologist."

"I figured," Faith said.

"You did?"

"Sure. People who're good at what they do don't usually steal from their bosses. Don't shit where you eat and all that."

"Quite," he said, closing his eyes.

"I'm gonna call him anyway, see if he know anything. Him and everyone else. Every god-damned slayer, watcher and Scooby in the entire universe, you see if I don't!"

He smiled. The end of the Council, even though Crowley hadn't been among the dead, had been a blow to him - an implication that there was no order to the world. He had never liked that order much, but it was still good to know that they weren't completely on their own anymore.

"Not the LAPD, though," he pleaded.

She sat quiet. So, she had intended to call them. Again. Robin felt a pang of sympathy for the no doubt overworked cops who must consider Faith a first-class stalker by now.

"If any of them are alive..." she started.

"If they are, they clearly don't want to be found. Please. When this is all over, you can start calling them again. But not right now. I just... I can't bear to listen."

She didn't reply. Maybe it wasn't fair of him to ask that she'd give up trying. But he really couldn't bear it if on top of everything else she'd be on the phone verbally abusing some poor Californian police officers because they couldn't deliver a miracle.

"All right," she said at long last. "I won't. I'll call everyone else I can think of, though."

"You'll get no argument from me," he said.

* * *

Faith made her calls all morning, but it was the middle of the afternoon before she got a callback. Robin wouldn't have expected it to be possible to jump while lying down, but when the signal sounded, he did. As for Faith, she came running in from the kitchen as if a Turok Han was after her, and threw herself on the phone.

When she hung up, she was looking both relieved and rather pensive.

"Not Giles," Robin guessed. "Willow?"

"Buffy," Faith said. "She's flying in from Rome."

That was certainly unexpected. Buffy had never shown an interest in Cleveland - on the contrary, she had made sure to keep an ocean between it and her. "That's good, isn't it?"

"I guess." Faith shrugged., chewing a little. After a while, she added, "Don't get me wrong, it'll be great having B here, but the thing is... she's a 'thinking on her feet' kind of gal. Great for battle, but for something like this..."

"We need a Watcher rather than a Slayer," Robin filled in. A thought struck him, and he was stunned that it had taken so long. "Call Crowley."

At first, Faith's expression was blank; then he saw recognition dawning in her face. "Your mom's..."

"481-516-2342."

"Huh?"

"That's his phone number." Good job, Robin, ranting off numbers like a maniac, without telling her what it was or giving her a chance to write them down or anything.

"Phone number. Right." She stuck her hand in her jeans pocket, and when she didn't find her cell phone there, looked around to see where she had left it. "481...?"

He repeated the phone number to her, a few numbers at a time, and then asked, "Do you want me to write it down?"

"Nah, it's okay. Slayer training."

"Right." It was funny, in a way; out of Buffy and Faith, Buffy was definitely the one who felt most like a Slayer, all her idiosyncrasies aside, but it was Faith who could do things like these, who had been drilled as a Slayer should. Robin's distinct impression was that Giles had taken one look at Buffy and then handed over the reins. Which in a way had proven a pretty good idea - Buffy might have made some terrible judgement calls, but as far as he knew, she'd never technically turned evil.

Still, Robin wouldn't have traded his Slayer girl for the world.

She was looking at him expectantly, and he realized that she had asked him a question.

"Sorry," he said. "You were saying?"

"Shouldn't you make the call? He's your family."

"Not sure I can make it into the kitchen."

"Cell phone," she pointed out, holding up the item in question.

"Oh." Since she looked ready to make another concerned comment on his fading health - the girl had no sense of tact - he started speaking to stop her, so fast he stumbled over the words. "Right. Forgot about that. Hand it over, I'll call him. It's been months since I last talked to the old man; I've been so busy with the hellmouth and the school."

When he finished speaking and reached for the phone, Faith had already dialled the number, and her fingers closed around his as he waited for Crowley to pick up.

The voice that met him was cheerful and Spanish, which first offset him and then made him smile. "Conchita? It's Robin. How are you?"

"Conchita doesn't work here anymore," the voice said. "I'm Ramona. Do you want her number?"

Didn't work there anymore? His hand started shaking so badly Faith had to take over the phone to stop it from slipping. What was going on with the world? He was losing his youth, maybe even his life, but some things were supposed to be constant, and that Beverly Hills kitchen was one of them.

"No, no that's okay," he said. "I'd like to speak to Bernard Crowley, is he present?"

He half expected her to say that Crowley had died, or joined a monastery, or moved to Peru, but instead she said, "one moment," and soon thereafter, he heard Crowley's voice, which still after all these years held a bit of New York in the vowels: "Robin?"

"Yeah," he said, faint with relief. "Hello, Crowley."

"It's good to hear from you, son. Is everything all right?"

"Not really." How could he tell Crowley what had happened? Should he start from the beginning, with the sword, or jump to the point – and beyond that, how could he bring himself to say the actual words? "That's why I'm calling. There seems to be a... well, a curse of some sort. I know that's not your area of expertise, but with the Watchers decimated, I figured..."

"Well, I'll help if I can, of course," Crowley said. "What do you..."

The rest of the sentence was muffled as Faith snatched the phone away from Robin, clearly dissatisfied with the way he was handling the conversation.

"Faith here," she said. "Listen, Robin's being all Joe Stoic about this, but he's really sick, and we don't know what to do about it. So if you could... yeah? Yeah. Okay." Her tight face softened a little. "Nice talking to you too."

She handed the phone back to him without another word, and he took it, bracing himself against the questions he knew would come.

Crowley had slipped into Watcher mode, offering only dry, clinical questions without comfort or pity, and for that, Robin was grateful. Robin recounted the details as close as he could remember them, and when he had told his story in full, there was a pause in the conversation. He didn't say, 'please come' or 'I need you. No 'help me.' Instead, the next words out of his mouth were accusatory: "Why did you fire Conchita?"

"I didn't. She retired, last June." Crowley didn't say, 'You would have known that if you'd called,' but Robin heard it never the less.

"Oh."

"I'll be on the next plane, and I'll bring everything I've got. Let's hope that's enough."

"You'll have to make connections in Chicago," he said. "Or New York, possibly."

"Any connection they have," Crowley promised. The Watcher was all gone from his voice now. "You hang in there."

Robin nodded, closing his eyes that were starting to fog. "I'll try."

* * *

"You're dying, aren't you?"

Robin turned his head towards Ella. Her eyes were sparkling, and her mouth curled up into a smile that showed a glimmer of her tiny front teeth.

"So it would seem," he said, and unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice now that Faith had left the room: "I take it you approve."

Her face hardened, making her look like a woman instead of the pouty adolescent she usually did. The change made him wonder how old she really was. Did vampires continue to grow old inside, so that her face no more showed her real age than his did, or was a once-young vampire stuck in a permanent state of immaturity? It wasn't something he had ever had reason to wonder before.

"You're murdering me," she said. "Am I supposed to mourn you?"

"I am not murdering you." Was she trying to get to him with that self-pitying attitude of hers? If so, it worked. "I'm willing to bet you'll live a considerably longer life than I will."

"A few decades, maybe," she spat out, as if the mere thought was an insult. "You humans have no concept of time. Maybe if you die, I'll go back to what I used to be."

"Maybe if I die, you never will."

"Then I'll at least get the pleasure of knowing you're rotting in hell."

He let his head fall back and closed his eyes, tired of whiny half-vampires, tired of this frail old body, tired of the whole Hellmouth. Things had been much easier when he had been killing off vampires one by one, his only mission to get to the one who had killed his mother.

Well, he'd found the right one, and look where that had gotten him. He'd failed to get his revenge, the damned vamp had died anyway - possibly twice - and now he was a dying old man of thirty-one.

He should have gotten out of the game while he had the chance. Or at the very least, he should have stuck to the find 'em, fight 'em, stake 'em approach.

"I wish I was murdering you," he muttered.

"Well, go ahead, then!" she jeered. "Grab a stake and do me in, get me out of this filthy human body!"

He didn't answer, though in his mind's eye he pictured himself doing just that.

"Oh, right, I forgot," she said, in a sweet, false voice. "You can't."

He could bear dying for those people in the hospital, and for Faith. But to die for this monster... God Almighty.

"I could make Faith do it," he pointed out.

"Make the Slayer fight your battles, how very brave."

"It's her job to get rid of creatures like you."

"No it isn't." Ella's voice had gone quiet, and Robin looked up, finding her eyes downcast. "There are no creatures like me."

He thought of Spike, and what people had told him of Angel. It wasn't the same. They had been full-strength vampires, with the capacity to murder and mutilate any human who came in their way. It was their urge to do so that had been compromised. Ella still had the urge; it was very clear to him that given the chance, she'd drink him dry and half of Cleveland along with him. But she couldn't.

He wondered if she had a soul now, Was she still a pure monster inside, raging at its impotence, or was she starting to feel the pull of a conscience and keeping up her soulless behaviour out of fear of what she might become?

You'd have to be Buffy to think that made a difference.

"I hate this," Ella said quietly, resting her chin on her knees. "I'm cold, and tired, and wet."

"That's humanity for... wet?"

"I don't know what happened."

Maybe that was true, but at least Robin had a pretty good idea. It seemed Ella had taken yet another step towards actual life, though hardly one she would enjoy.

He propped himself up on his elbow, but quickly realized that even if he managed to stand up, there was no way he could drag Ella into the bathroom without causing her to escape. Even in her weakened state, she was a lot stronger than he was right now.

"Faith!" he called. He could hear her rummaging about in the bedroom but it took a while before she arrived. Had she been listening to the radio again? He had told her she could bring it into the living room, or watch TV if she preferred, but it seemed she didn't want to disturb him or something.

When she appeared in the doorway, he told her, "Ella seems to have had a bit of an accident."

Faith scowled, measuring Ella with her eyes. "What kind of an accident?"

"The kind that would require you taking her into the bathroom, washing her off, and getting her some new clothes." Robin made an apologetic grimace and nodded towards the weapons cabinet. "Keys are in the bottom drawer. Sorry."

Faith's corresponding grimace was anything but apologetic. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" Despite her obvious distaste, she did go to the weapon cabinets and dug out the key. As she unlocked the manacles, she told Ella, "Piss on me, girl, and I'm gonna cut out your guts with a dull knife, I don't care what the cops say. Damn it, ain't there any books on how to housebreak a vampire?"

"I don't think the problem has even arisen before," Robin pointed out.

Faith scoffed. Hauling Ella out of the room, she told Robin, "If you need me..."

"I'll make sure to let you know before I went my pants," he said wryly.

She watched him as if she wasn't certain if he was joking or not. He really wished he had been.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6  
Faith

* * *

By the time the doorbell rang, Faith had eaten a little, rested a little, but mostly had plenty of time to wonder if it would be okay with the new council to send for a junior Slayer or ten to handle some chores around the place. Surely "bathroom duty" was the kind of thing you could pass over to someone with less work experience?

She was relieved and excited as she went to open the door, even though the best case scenario was some moldy old Watcher. Better than nothing.

She opened it - and stared. The man standing outside was very tall and very thin, with large black-framed glasses, a giant walrus moustache, a long woollen coat, and a fedora. He looked like a flagpole in disguise.

"Hi there. You must be Faith," he said, and the illusion was broken, because she'd never heard a flagpole speak with a New York accent. "I'm Crowley."

"I figured," she said, taking a step aside to let him by.

He took off the fedora, revealing his thick grey hair. It made him look a little bit more like a person. Weird as he looked, though, he was younger than she had expected. Maybe it was just Robin's curse that made her perspective off, but she would've thought that a guy who'd retired as a Watcher thirty years ago would have to be ancient. This guy didn't seem to be all that much older than the other Watchers she had known – well, of the old Council, anyway.

"You're looking thoughtful," he told her, taking off his coat. Underneath, he had grey pants and a tennis shirt. Old guy clothes, but no tweed.

"How old are you?" she asked straight out.

His eyebrows shot up. "How very nice to meet you, Faith. Thank you, I had a very good flight. Now, how is Robin?"

"Dying," she countered, annoyed to be lectured about manners by some geezer who was supposed to be helpful.

His face grew serious, and he put his suitcase down on the floor, though he kept a smaller bag. "Let's get to it, then."

She took him into the living room. Robin was sitting up and had that careless expression she remembered from the San Diego hospital last year. The one that made her want to call the nurse.

"Hi, Crowley," he said, smiling a little. "Want me to say aah?"

"It'd be a start," Crowley said, his voice slightly shaky. He took a chair up to the couch and threw a glance at Ella, but made no comment on her. "Damn it, Robbie, what have you gotten yourself into?"

"Remember how you told me that smoking would make me age prematurely? Well, I stopped smoking, and see where that got me."

"I also told you to stay away from magic," Crowley pointed out. He grabbed Robin's wrist with his fingertips, glancing at his watch to check the pulse. "You didn't listen to that, now, did you?"

On occasion, Faith had heard Robin speak on the phone in what she'd named his teacher voice, the one that said he was completely in control of the situation and willing to be patient with some stupidity from the person he was dealing with, but that his patience had limits. She had thought it was just his job that had made him sound like that. Now she knew better.

"It's not as if I was dabbling in spells," Robin said. "It was an old sheath."

"Ancient artifacts," Crowley said. "Even worse."

He had to be bluffing with that attitude, Faith decided. There was no magic word that would make things better, and he was not in control of the situation.

Maybe Robin never had been either. Maybe no one ever did. She used to think that other people didn't feel that black hole of chaos and confusion, but what if everyone did and they were just better at faking it? She knew Robin had to be keeping up the whole calm as a cucumber routine as a way of coping, that it was all fake, but the question was if it was just right now, or always?

Crowley kept asking Robin questions about the sheath while giving him the full physical. He even took out one of those headphone thingies - a stethoscope - from his bag. Any moment now, he'd start handing out lollipops.

"You're a doctor?" Faith asked. That was a pretty weird job for a Watcher. Dusty old books were more their thing.

"Demon anatomy, once upon a time," Crowley said, feeling the glands under Robin's chin. "Plastic surgery, after that. Now I'm retired."

Plastic surgery? Definitely not a Watcher area, but it did explain the relative lack of mold. Except she had lived in California long enough to recognize Botox and silicone, and she could see none of it on this guy. Not even the tight skin of a face lift.

"You never told me how old you were," she said.

"You're very nosy," Crowley said and asked Robin as he squeezed his ribcage, "Does it hurt when I do this? Seventy-two."

It took a while for Faith to realize that she had gotten her answer, tangled up in the examination. Okay. Seventy-two was old, a good ten years older than she would have guessed from his face, but still meant he'd been one of the less old-and-stuffy Watchers back in his day.

She could sort of see that, traces of a younger man behind the flagpole disguise. Looking at the two of them, she wondered what Nikki Wood had thought of her Watcher, if she'd ever had the urge to jump his bones. If she had jumped his bones.

She sternly reminded herself that not everyone was like her, and that two people could have a close relationship without sex being involved. She didn't think Buffy and Giles has ever been even close to fucking – and if she was wrong, she really didn't want to know about it – but she could totally see him taking in Buffy's kid out of some sentimental sense of duty. Well, if Buffy had a kid.

"..and in the morning, it had reached this state," Robin finished his story. "I can only hope that the curse has finished running its course and that it won't get any worse than this."

"Have you seen any other doctors?"

Robin chuckled. "Not really eager to try and explain this to a doctor."

"So what have you told your job?"

"That I have the flu."

"Hmm... Pneumonia."

"He's got pneumonia too?" Faith asked, her voice going high-pitched like a little girl's.

Both Robin and Crowley looked at her like she was completely off her rocker.

"That's what he'll tell the school," Robin explained. "It's a little more comme-il-faut than 'curse'."

He had to know she had no clue what that word meant, but the point got through anyway. Not a bad idea, she had to admit, to get a doctor's note.

"You keep calling it a curse," Crowley said. "I'm not so sure it is."

Robin held up his hand with the burn marks. "It's this hand that does the healing, and it only started after I was burned by the sheath. As evidence goes, I think that's fairly conclusive."

"Oh, I'm convinced whatever spell was put on the sheath is responsible for your current predicament," Crowley said. "It's just that 'curse' implies that it's intentional and malignant, and we don't really have sufficient proof for either. All we know is that the sheath turned you into a healer – and that for some inexplicable reason, the side effects have been amplified. It should take twenty or thirty years for you to reach the condition you're in."

"I'll remember that for next time," Robin said wryly.

"This is normal?" Faith asked. "Over twenty or thirty years?"

Crowley nodded. "Ever seen a woman after ten childbirths or so?"

She recalled a kid in school - Janet Sullivan, wasn't it? - who had a whole mess of brothers and sisters. Her mom had been a real ugly old thing. Not that Faith's had looked much better, passed out drunk on the couch. "Yeah."

"Giving life is a taxing business. Do it every day, and you don't have much of your own left." Crowley looked at Robin and furrowed his brow. "But you say that this happened less than a week ago."

Something clicked in Faith's brain, and she turned towards Ella, giving the vampire girl a long, hard stare. "Is it her fault?"

Robin and Crowley both looked at Ella too, their faces carrying the same thoughtful expression.

Ella blinked, and then got defensive, crossing her arms as well as she could with the chains. "What? He messes me up, and suddenly that's my fault?"

"This is the vampire?" Crowley said, standing up. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and once again dug out the stethoscope from his bag.

"Former vampire," Robin said.

Ella bared her teeth at the stethoscope. "Touch me with that and I'll bite you."

"Be my guest," Crowley said. "I've never had the chance to examine the teeth of a defanged vampire before."

She did bite him, too, but it didn't seem to phase him much. He just pried his fingers out of her jaw, and as far as Faith could tell, bones and skin were still unbroken.

"Hm," he said, holding Ella's chains with one hand so she couldn't scratch at him as he used the stethoscope on her. "Are you aware that she has a heartbeat?"

"Are you aware that you're smelly and repulsive?" Ella asked. "And I do not have a heartbeat!"

"She didn't before," Robin said. "Must have happened after this last time I touched her."

"I'm glad you're dying," Ella told him.

"And the bucket?" Crowley asked.

"Is there for my utter and complete humiliation."

"If you don't shut up," Faith said, still reeling after the comment Ella had made to Robin, "I'm gonna tape your mouth shut. It'll be fun to see if you can starve to death."

"The bucket?" Crowley repeated, looking at Faith.

"Like I have any desire to drag her Royal Badness's ass to the bathroom all the time," Faith said.

"Interesting."

Crowley gave Ella a thorough examination just like the one he'd given Robin, only this time he had to keep his skin out of touch for her teeth and nails. Faith idly wondered if vampires could have rabies. She hoped not. They finally had someone around who was willing to help, and it'd be pretty rotten if he died a horrible death because of it.

"It's really fascinating," Crowley said, finishing his examination. "There are still some discrepancies, but she does seem to be mostly human."

Ella and Faith both scoffed. Robin raised his graying eyebrows and smiled a little. "Not including such things as human behavior."

"Behaviour is learned. Bodily functions are not." Crowley took off his glasses and polished them on his shirt. Without them, his eyes looked big and sleepy. "She's old, and she has forgotten things. I think you may be right, Faith. Healing a vampire who has been dead for centuries may be enough to expedite the aging process to this degree."

"Okay," Faith said, concentrating on the 'right' part and ignoring 'expedite'. "So what do we do about it?"

Crowley put his glasses on, sighed deeply, and shrugged. It made him look like one of the vultures in The Jungle Book. Faith half expected his answer to be 'whatcha wanna do?' but he didn't say anything at all.

"That's it?" Faith couldn't believe it. "We're not gonna do anything?"

"I'm all in favour of doing something," Crowley replied, sounding very tired. "I just don't know what."

"If I may offer an idea," Robin said, sitting up, "I think since this whole problem started with the spell on the sheath, undoing that spell might be a good place to start."

"Right!" Faith agreed. "Undo the spell!"

Crowley shook his head, his eyes fixed on Robin. "You know I can't do that, Robbie."

"But I'm willing to bet you know someone who does." Robin's eyes were teary and bloodshot, but the gaze in them was firm. "You brought your little black book, didn't you?"

"Son, ninety percent of the people in that book are dead."

"The explosion?" Faith guessed.

"No, time," Crowley said. He looked over at her with a sad smile. "Though the explosion certainly didn't help." He stood up, heading over to the hall. "All right. I'll see who I can find."

He returned with an old-fashioned notebook, its soft covers made of vinyl, and sat down once again on his chair by Robin's feet.

"I assume you have tried young Rupert Giles?" he asked.

Young Rupert Giles, Faith noted. Oh yeah, she was back in Watcher territory all right. "I tried to call him," she said. "I keep getting Andrew."

"Andrew?"

"Wells."

"Ah yes." Crowley turned the pages. "I have him in here. Well, if you've already called him, there's no reason for me to pester him further. Could he offer any help?"

"Just in the sense of sending over Buffy - we're expecting her in a day or two."

"The senior Slayer?" He frowned. "Does she have knowledge of spells?"

Robin snorted. "Not really, no."

"She has knowledge of slaying," Faith said. "Which will be pretty useful with me and Robin busy with this shit."

"Robin is, as you put it, 'busy with this shit'," Crowley said sharply. "You will be performing your Slayer duties as always."

What the fuck? That was the trouble with Watchers, they started bossing you around if they got the chance. Judging from Robin's sharp intake of breath, he knew how pissed that would make her. That calmed her down a little – at least she had him on her side.

She wished she could have gutted Crowley, but they needed his help, and besides, Robin would've been pissed. Oh, and the whole it being wrong thing.

"Right now," she said, "Robin is my Slayer duties. And you're not my Watcher, Grandpa, so how about you stick to what you know and leave me the hell alone?"

"Just - " Robin interrupted before Crowley had a chance to find an answer " - stop it. Please. Look those names up. Someone has to be alive."

Without a word, Crowley started flipping through the pages of the book. From where she was standing, Faith could see that there were a lot of names in there, but still it took a while before he spoke up.

"Tennant," he said. "Young Lydia. Afraid of her own shadow, but a clever girl. Still, I have her marked for vampire lore, which this most definitely isn't."

"All I want to know," Faith said, gritting her teeth, "is if you have anyone in there who is alive and knows how to make a spell."

"That's what we're going to find out, isn't it?" Crowley kept turning the pages, and then hesitated for a while before turning them back again. "Well, I suppose this is no time to be choosy. Wyndam-Pryce. Not a warlock per se, but decent enough - "

"He died in LA," Faith said, cutting him short. The old ache of mourning for Angel and the others flared up and made her voice harsh. "Strike him out."

"Ah." Crowley frowned at the notebook. "Well, I can't say I'm sorry - not after that business with Nikki."

"Different Watcher generations, I think," Robin said, closing his eyes.

Faith had no idea what he was talking about, and Crowley looked confused for a moment too, but then he nodded slowly.

"Oh, right. I remember there being a boy. Don't think I ever met him as an adult."

"So this would be his... what, dad?" Faith asked.

"Mm." Crowley didn't seem to want to expand on the subject, or call the number.

"He's one of the people who voted in favour, isn't he?" Robin asked, his eyes still closed.

"Yes. Still - it's been more than thirty years."

"In favour of what?" Faith was trying to follow the discussion, but it was getting pretty damned difficult.

"Abortion," Robin said.

It didn't take long for Faith to follow that line of thought. Slayage and kids were a pretty fucked up blend. But taking a vote on it? "Shouldn't that have been up to your mom?"

"That was the purpose of the vote," Crowley said. "A sizable portion of the Council felt that it was a too important decision to hand over to the individual Slayer. From a Watcher's perspective, I suppose they had a point. But I'm a doctor. I believe in consent."

She could just see that - a bunch of tweedy Watchers deciding what to do with their Slayer's little mistake. Sometimes she really hated this gig. Things were different now, though. At least they were supposed to be.

"Call him," Robin said. "The worst he can do is say no."

Crowley hesitated, but then raised his shoulders in a shrug. "I suppose in this day and age, that's true. All right, then. May I use your phone?"

Faith nodded towards the sofa table, where the phone was standing between some popcorn and a pile of books. She'd made a lot of use of all three things lately. "Over there."

Crowley pulled another black notebook from his bag, along with a pen. He then went to fetch the sword and sheath, and piled it all up by the phone. In order to do so, he had to move aside Faith's piles, and he scowled in an almost Giles-like way at the heavy history book she'd put face-down. Very carefully, he tore out a page from one of his notebooks and put it as a bookmark in the history book before laying it aside.

He seemed to take forever to dial the phone number, but then, it was overseas and probably had about a gazillion numbers to it. And then they all waited as he sat quietly by the phone.

"Hello, this is Bernard Crowley," he finally said, and Faith started a little, because she'd stopped expecting it. "I'm calling to ask if you could help me out with this spell - well, more like curse - that Robin's been exposed to."

He started explaining the curse the way Faith had explained it to him, but stopped before he had reached the aging bit. It wasn't the kind of silence that you had when you were listening to someone else speaking. This was a stone-cold, freezing silence

"If you ever use that word about him again," he said slowly, "I'm going to fly all the way over to England and kick your ass, I swear to God."

This time, the silence was of a listening kind, and Crowley didn't sound quite as pissed when he spoke again: "I know that. This isn't about being right. This thing is draining his life right out – he could be older than me, the way he looks. A lot of people have died lately." He paused. "I know you've... had your share of losses. This is one we might be able to prevent. Please, if you can help us, don't tell me what he should have done, or what I should have done, just say what we should do now."

Faith watched Robin, trying to figure out how he felt about Crowley pretty much pleading for his life on the phone, but his face was still damned hard to read.

Another listening silence, and Crowley's face softened. "Thank you," he said. "Yeah, we're pretty certain. Faith, get me the sword."

Huh. It seemed 'please' was reserved for the jerk on the phone. Faith got the sword and sheath from the weapon cabinet and put them down on the sofa table, careful to find an empty spot between all the other stuff on there.

"And the translation?"

"In the pile."

Crowley rummaged about until he found the note, holding the phone squeezed between his ear and his shoulder. "Yeah. Viking, it seems like. Well, largely that's due to size combined with weight, as I understand it. And it says 'blessed be the killer of evil.' Uh, that's... S-I-G-N-E. Is that so?"

Since most of what Faith could hear was things she already knew, she headed over to Robin and sat down where Crowley had been sitting before. "You okay?"

"I'm hungry," he said, sounding vaguely surprised.

"Well, that's a good sign, isn't it?"

"Please," he said in disgust, and while his face was as old as ever, his voice sounded very young all of a sudden. "Don't say that."

"Don't say what?"

"'Good sign.' It makes this whole place smell of hospital bed."

She got his point, but as far as she was concerned, the place already smelled of hospital bed. Last time she had felt it this strongly, she had waken up hooked to a bunch of monitors, and it had made her so mad she pummelled a girl on the way out. Sure, part of that had been to get her clothes. But most of it, the fierce, furious inch-of-her-life beating, had been because she was aching to get that smell out of her nose. To replace it with anything, even the smell of blood.

"Will you do me a favor?" he asked.

"Sure, what?"

"I'd like to eat in the kitchen."

That was a pretty bad idea. She'd had enough trouble helping him to the bathroom, and she suspected that if they got as far as the kitchen, he'd be too tired to eat. On the other hand, it wasn't like she could blame him. Not much fun having dinner with a bored half-vamp in one corner of the room and Crowley in the other trying to save Robin's life with the help of a guy who hadn't wanted him born in the first place.

"Okay," she said. "Just don't poop out on me."

He smiled. "Would I do that?"

"You tell me."

She got up and put her arm around him, helping him stand. It would've been easier to just scoop him up and carry him, but there was that pesky little issue of pride. Robin wasn't the kind of guy who'd freak at any little attack on his dignity, but there was undignified like falling into an open grave during a stakeout and undignified like being carried around your own apartment by the girl who was supposed to be boinking you senseless.

With joined efforts, they hobbled into the kitchen, and Faith took care to make sure he was comfortable when she helped him into a chair.

"No heart attacks?" she asked.

"Not a one," he replied. That fucker, he looked like shit, but he still had that dignity thing going for him.

"That's good." She stood there watching him for a while. For some reason, it seemed like he was waiting for her to do something. "Oh, dammit! You want me to cook, don't you?"

"I could try doing it myself, but..."

"Yeah, 'cause we want more burns on top of everything else. God, I hate you."

This was the danger of staying too long in one place. People started expecting things of you. Lousy, boring things, like bathroom duty and cooking. At least Robin was less likely than the vampire to moan and groan because he thought he was above eating regular food.

Oh fuck. She had forgotten Robin's most annoying quirk: his inability to eat anything a human would like. How the hell did you cook eggplants and quorn and that shit anyway?

"You get cheese sandwiches," she decided. "Take it or leave it."

"I'll take it," he said. "Though if you feel the urge..."

"Not feeling any urge," she assured him.

"...there are some vegetarian sausages in the fridge."

She made horking noises. "If you're going to go all blasphemous on me, you can starve."

But she knew she was going to fry those damned sausages. She was turning into such a pushover.

* * *

Robin had dared her to try one of the sausages, but even with ketchup it tasted just as bland as she had thought it would, and she stuck to sandwiches.

This was all wrong. Normally he'd be the one who made meals – fancy meals with chopped-up ingredients and half a dozen different herbs and spices. Most of the time it'd taste pretty good by the time he was finished. But without the sauce and the spices and the chopped-up stuff, what you had was gruel in sausage form.

"I don't know how you can eat that shit," she said.

He didn't answer, or smile, or do any of the things that could have set her mind at ease. He just watched her, and she was forced to watch him back. Jesus. She didn't think he could survive healing someone else, but that wasn't what scared her. Even if he never healed anyone ever again, if he never so much as touched somebody, she didn't think he could survive. Period.

What was taking Crowley so long? She listened carefully, trying to hear something from the living room. She picked up a few mumbled phrases, impossible to understand, but then even they went quiet. The call was over.

"Will you please just relax and eat?" Robin asked. "You're making me nervous."

"If you're not nervous already, there's something wrong with you," she snapped.

Crowley showed up in the doorway and gave Robin a long, thoughtful look.

"Well?" Faith asked. "Is he gonna help?"

"He agreed to try," Crowley said, not taking his eyes off Robin, "which is quite something considering he's the kind of man who wouldn't sneeze without checking proper procedure first. And he did give me the identity of the Slayer. Signe Amundsdottir, late tenth century, Scandinavia somewhere. It seems the runes we believed to be 'blessed' is actually her name."

"Signe, the killer of evil," Robin said slowly, as if trying out the words. "It makes sense. So, I guess we should start by finding out all we can about her..."

Faith could tell from Crowley's expression that it wasn't going to happen, and it only took her a second longer to figure out why. "The explosion," she said. "There's nowhere to find out anymore."

Crowley closed his eyes and turned his head slightly away. She didn't blame him.

"Do you remember anything about her?" Robin asked. His voice sounded thick. "Did he?"

"I don't even remember that she existed," Crowley said. "Apparently, she worked for some chieftain or another, and after he died, she disappeared. Left her home, no one ever found her."

"Until now," Faith said. These little bits of information weren't very helpful, but they made her feel a lot better. For the past few days, it was like she'd been having this Slayer girl - Signe - inside her head, and now she'd taken a step forward."America's first Slayer. Cool."

"I very much doubt that," Robin said. He was clearly struggling to keep his voice even, but he smiled a little. "Native American Slayers of that time wouldn't have made the official registry, but they're pretty much guaranteed to have existed."

Okay, point, but somehow that didn't count. She wasn't sure why. Those ancient Indian Slayers been the lucky ones, without Watchers or rules or any of that shit. Just superpowers and a chance to use them any way they wanted. And maybe that was the reason, right there. If there was no one around to lecture you day and night on what it meant to be a Slayer, would you even really be one? As little as she liked it, that straitjacket of rules and regulations had been part of the package for thousands of years. Enough that even now that everything had changed, there were still Watchers and sacred duties and whatnot designed to keep the Slayers on the straight and narrow.

"I wonder what she was like," she thought out loud. "She had to have some balls, crossing an ocean like that."

"Pretty irresponsible, though," Robin said. "She didn't tell anyone, she just left."

"Sounds like my kind of girl," Faith said. Somehow it was good to know that Signe hadn't been the perfect little Slayer.

"Don't be too hard on her," Crowley said. "It's more or less what I did, the first couple of months after your mom died. Sometimes you need the time out."

"You took more responsibility, though," Robin said.

Crowley smiled. "I took you."

Faith was still following the line of thought Crowley had brought out. "That chieftain... you think that's why she left? Maybe he was our 'ik' guy. We ought to be able to find him in the history books, yeah?"

Robin shook his head. "Scandinavia in those times... lots of tiny kingdoms and hardly any information about any of them."

"Not to mention the number of names that end in 'ik'," Crowley said.

"Erik," Faith said. "Patrik... What else?"

"Ulrik," Robin suggested.

"Frederik, Hendrik, Alarik..." Crowley continued.

"Okay, okay, I get the picture." Faith sighed. "One step forward, two backward, huh?"

"I wouldn't say that," Robin said. "We're going somewhere on this. Slowly, but I think eventually..."

"Eventually? How much time do you think we have?"

Silence spread across the room, enough that Faith could hear the by now familiar rattle of chains from the living room as Ella changed her position. She saw the shock on Robin's face, and her anger and frustration disappeared. Instead, she just felt sad.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to..."

Robin clasped her hand in brittle fingers and looked to Crowley. "How much time do we have, Coll?"

Crowley shook his head slightly and stroke his thumb along his moustache. "Age is a tricky condition to predict. You've taken good care of your body, and that helps, even now. Your heart is weak, but I've seen people live for years with a weak heart. It also elevates the risk for a stroke somewhat, but your healthy lifestyle remedies that to a point. All I can say is what I'd tell anyone who manages to reach a high age. Take good care of yourself, and..." He grimaced, clearly aware of how inappropriate his next words were. "Enjoy life."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7  
Buffy

* * *

Going to Cleveland reminded Buffy of why she'd been so happy to get off the Sunnydale Hellmouth in the first place. Sure, there were vampires in Rome, as well as demons and wizards and your occasional vengeful old god. Only last week, she had been forced to disarm a fire god who had gone all pissy when Andrew mistook him for an alien. But that stuff didn't happen every day anymore, and no one went on about her sacred duty, because everyone was too busy looking for all the other sacred dutifuls out there.

She'd been in Cleveland for all of half an hour, and she'd already staked two vampires. Either Faith was slacking off, or this Hellmouth was a whole lot more Hellmouthy than she'd thought. She was a bit surprised that Faith – or Wood, for that matter – hadn't called for a junior Slayer or two long before this.

The Immortal seemed fascinated by the city, taking deep breaths as he walked along. "I don't think I've ever smelled something like this. The whole place is reeking of demonic activity. Do you feel it?"

"No, but my nose isn't thousands of years old," Buffy pointed out. "You could have helped, you know."

"Cara mia, you know I never get involved in that sort of thing." He pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her waist, rubbing her back with his thumbs so tickles of pleasure ran along her spine.

It was very very hard to stay angry with him when he made her feel so good.

"You can't just... mmm... try to weasel out of an argument by trying... ooh... to seduce me."

"Who's weaselling?" He was grinning now, and she pinched him. Not too hard, just to get him to be serious for a while.

"What if I had died?"

"That would have been tragic."

Still not serious. "Would you have helped?"

"Helped kill you? Certainly not." He stroke her cheek. "Helped save you? Perhaps. You're a remarkable woman, Buffy Summers. I'd do a lot to keep you around a bit longer. Maybe even slay vampires."

A noise came from the shadows, and Buffy whipped up her stake, but realized a second later that it was only rats. It had gotten her on edge, though, and she shook off the Immortal's hands.

"Come on," she said. "I think it's the street over there."

She hurried her steps so he wouldn't start touching her again. As much as she loved everything he did with her body, she needed to keep her eyes on the goal here, and the goal was not making out in the middle of the street while Wood lay dying five minutes away. Maybe it had been a mistake to bring the Immortal with her, but on the other hand, she preferred him where she could see him, just to make sure he didn't run off with some pretty signorina. Or worse, tried to nail Dawn, who had already shown a disturbing amount of interest in her sister's ancient boyfriend.

Robin's building was nice and well-kept, which made it kind of odd to see one of the windows boarded up. It looked like something fitting of a much more run-down place. It worried her. In Sunnydale, people's homes usually looked homey even if a vamp had just wiped out the whole family. Denial was a way of life. If people here didn't even bother to pretend that they weren't on a Hellmouth, things were pretty bad.

They found the right number and walked up the stairs to Wood's apartment. The stairway was clean, the door your average sturdy-looking door. Buffy rang the doorbell.

Faith was the one to open. She was wearing her usual kind of clothes, but no makeup, which made her look oddly subdued.

"Hey, B," she said, giving Buffy a tired but open smile. "Good to see you, girl."

"You too," Buffy said, and she found to her own surprise that she meant it. Despite everything, she still had this strange sisterly feeling towards Faith that she didn't feel with any other Slayer. She liked some of them better, but that was beside the point. Dawn wasn't always her favourite person either. Though, she reminded herself, Dawn had certainly never killed anyone. Well, not unless they were an evil anyone, and that didn't count.

"Faith," she said, "this is the Immortal. He's my boyfriend, I guess you'd say. And this, obviously, is Faith. The other senior Slayer."

Faith sized the Immortal up in a way that was so totally like her, but also totally like what most women did first time they met him, so Buffy wasn't very concerned.

"How very lovely to meet you, Faith," the Immortal said, taking her hand as he spoke and flashing a wide smile. "I've heard a lot about you."

"Yeah?" She gave him a wicked grin, and for a moment there she was Faith in full slut-mode, looking to devour any man, woman or object that came in her way. "Nothing good, I suspect."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that."

"Where's Wood?" Buffy interrupted before the two of them had a chance to do it on the doormat.

Faith instantly snapped out of sex-mode. "In there, with Crowley."

They all walked into the living room. There was a girl chained to the wall and a walker standing by the sofa, both pretty weird things to have around, but Buffy focused her attention on the two old men sitting in the sofa. "Hi," she said, "I'm..." One of them had a ridiculous moustache. The other was black and frail-looking, and her voice drifted off. Andrew had told her about the curse, but it was still a hell of a shock to realize that this was Wood. "...Buffy."

The chained-up girl giggled. Apparently, she was one of those immature people who thought 'Buffy' was a hilarious name.

Wood smiled. "Good to have you here, Buffy." He sounded very Wood-like, which only made everything weirder.

"Jesus," she said, her own voice sounding very small and far away.

"We've pretty much covered that part," Faith said from behind her. "But we'll let you catch up."

Buffy pulled herself together. This was certainly no worse than when Giles was turned into a demon, or when Xander got that smallpox-and-syphilis curse. She smiled at Wood. "Sorry. I was just taken by surprise, that's all." She smiled at the other man as well. Wow, that moustache was really huge. And talk about ugly glasses. He looked nice, though. "You must be Crowley."

"Must be," he agreed, watching her with a chilly sort of interest. "And you're quite the celebrity – the only Slayer to ever go freelance."

"Hey!" Faith protested. "What about me?"

"I said 'freelance', not 'evil'," Crowley said. "You're hardly the first Slayer to have done that."

"Really?" Buffy asked. She had never heard of any other evil Slayers – but then again, she supposed that wasn't the kind of tales Watchers would want to tell. From that point of view, she supposed it was surprising that there were even any records.

Faith's thought when in a totally different direction. "What about Signe?" she asked, sticking her chin out. "She went freelance."

Buffy had no idea what she was talking about. A junior Slayer, or one of those that had come before her and that she didn't know about because she'd never been force-fed the Slayer handbook.

"You don't know that," Crowley said. "She left, yes, but she could have deserted her duties. Or gone evil, like you."

"Signe didn't go evil!" Faith said heatedly.

Okay, that was just weird. Why would Faith be so quick to object to the idea that some Slayer had been evil, when she had done pretty much nothing to stop herself from going all psycho-Slayer? "Clue me in here. Who's Signe?"

"The Slayer who owned the sword," Robin said.

Ah, that Slayer. The reason they were here. Buffy hadn't known she had a name - and seeing how Faith got all worked up about her, she had a lot more than that. Was Faith having dreams, or was there some other reason Faith suddenly had this inter-Slayer loyalty thing going on?

"Show it to me," she said.

Faith walked over to a large cupboard and opened it, revealing a shitload of swords, stakes and other dangerous, mostly pointy things. Robin had quite the collection. The sword Faith picked out was old and blackened, and she held it with a kind of reverie that was really weird coming from a girl with no respect from much of anything.

"Don't break it," Faith said, handing it over.

"It's a sword," Buffy said. "They're meant to be kind of sturdy." She turned it over in her hand, feeling the weight, and the warmth from Faith's hand on the hilt. Beyond that, she thought she felt something else, the presence of another mind, hovering over the sword not unlike Faith was doing at the moment. But maybe that was just her imagination.

"Slayers and weaponry," the Immortal said, and Buffy's head jerked up. She had completely forgotten him, but he had entered the living room and now half-sat at the arm of a chair, watching her with great amusement. "What is the attraction there, I wonder?"

"Don't worry about it," Faith said. Her eyes were still on the sword, but her voice had gone purry and sultry. "I'm sure yours is large enough to compete."

It was just Faith's usual mating dance, but considering the Immortal, it was hard to tell if it'd stay that way or what kind of wacky sexscapades they'd be up to if Buffy took her eyes off them. She glanced at Robin to see his reaction, but if anything, he looked amused. Maybe she'd gotten him and Faith all wrong and they were just shacking as pals, but she didn't think so. Or maybe he thought he had Faith figured out. Trouble was, even if he was right, she was pretty sure he didn't have the Immortal figured out.

Well, she had one advantage there. She knew the both of them. Still didn't know what to do about them, though.

"Can I have the sword back now?" Faith asked.

Jolted out of her thoughts, Buffy reluctantly handed over the sword. Letting go of it made her feel kind of alone. For the first time in... well, ever, she wished she was back in high school, and that she had the Scoobies to solve this instead of two semi-enemies, an oversexed boyfriend and a couple of strangers. Or one stranger, anyway. She frowned at the chained-up girl, who hadn't said a word during the entire conversation and seemed content to just watch the Immortal with mild but lustful interest.

"What's the deal with your Little Miss Bondage?" she asked.

"She's..." Robin started, and then his mouth twitched. "I guess you'd call her our hostage."

Buffy's eyebrows shot up in surprise, and she watched the girl more closely. Short and round-faced, she didn't look very dangerous, but then, neither did Faith. "In the actual sense or the cookie baking sense?"

"In the sense where we haven't got a clue what to do with her," Faith said. "She used to be a vampire until Robin gave her the magic touch. Now she's... well, a pain in the ass. Too much of a vampire to be safe, too much of a human to stake."

Buffy opened her mouth to remind Faith that she'd staked a human once before, but shut it again, suddenly hearing what Faith wasn't saying. She as good as admitted that staking a human had affected her after all. Of course, Buffy had known that for a long time, but she hadn't known if Faith had known it, or been willing to admit it.

"I get that," she said softly.

Faith shrugged. "Ah well. Crowley's enjoying it, and we got bigger things to worry about. You staying here or at a hotel?"

"That's the bigger things you have to worry about?"

"No, that's the question I ask so I don't have to worry about the bigger things I have to worry about. So, which is it?"

Buffy considered the question. As far as damage control went, there was no winning move. On one hand, a whole hotel full of women who'd be more than willing to throw themselves over the Immortal. On the other, Faith. She sighed.

"I guess we'll stay here."

* * *

Buffy woke up in a strange bed, with only a dent in the mattress to remind her that she hadn't gone to sleep alone. She sat up, listening to the sounds that emerged from the dark. The street was mostly quiet, with the odd car whooshing by now and then, but she heard muffled voices from inside... talking? No, moaning. Sex sounds - and it wasn't from upstairs.

She got up and walked out into the living room. Robin was sitting up on the couch with his blanket wrapped around him, and he gave her a wry smile. The vampire girl was lying on her side on the floor, stretching her chains so that she'd get as close to the bathroom as possible.

"I guess my boyfriend's in there," Buffy said with a nod towards the bathroom. It wasn't a question. Even if the only other option hadn't been an old geezer who looked like a cross between Joe Stalin and Groucho Marx, she would have known from the way Ella reacted. The Immortal was the only man she knew who could send women into heat just by being around them - well, the only man apart from any idiot who knew how to slap together a love spell, anyway.

"That's right," Robin said.

"And your girlfriend?" That was a no-brainer too, but Buffy was still hesitant to ask.

"Right again." He sounded very calm, but looked a bit gloomy.

Buffy sat down on the couch. "Bad combo, those two. To much sex drive in the same room. I should have known."

"It doesn't take an immortal sorcerer to make Faith have sex," Robin pointed out.

"He's not a sorcerer," Buffy said automatically. The Immortal himself usually found it amusing that people assumed his skills were revved up by magic, but it always pissed Buffy off - she was the one supposed to be under his spell, after all.

"What is it then? It's not like he's all that attractive. Scrawny-looking, and that nose..."

"His nose has character," Buffy said, trying hard not to hit Robin in the head. That whole jealousy issue was bound to cloud his judgement. "But you're missing the big picture here. He's got thousands of years worth of experience."

"Well, then. Sounds like something worth taking for a test drive."

Was he being sarcastic? She didn't tune in one any sarcasm-vibe, but then, she'd always had a hard time figuring out what was what with him. "You... don't mind?"

"Considering that we've both had plenty of sex with people who didn't have six thousand years worth of experience, I'd be rather hypocritical if I did."

That sounded like a pretty level way of looking at a relationship. Trouble was, for the first time in the conversation, she could hear a quiver in his voice.

"If you say so," she replied.

The moans from the bathroom became louder. Tonguework, Buffy guessed. Either that, or that thing he'd do with your feet. And Faith? What was she doing to him? Buffy couldn't see her as the type who'd just stand still and enjoy the ride. All about putting the "pro" in "proactive", Faith.

Robin sighed. "Thing is.. I can't do that, now. If we don't break this curse, chances are I'm going to die without ever having sex with Faith again."

"Ouch," Buffy said quietly. Looking at it from that angle, the whole situation got a lot worse - and it wasn't like it had been all hugs and puppies so far. She should have checked into a hotel instead. At least then she would have been the only one tortured by sounds like these. Or she shouldn't have come at all. Or not have brought the Immortal. What was he going to do in a fight anyway - stand by and take notes? There was something pretty irritating about a guy who was too jaded for stuff like big cosmic fights between good and evil.

Listen to the noises, she thought she might even have preferred it if he had stayed at home seducing Dawn. At least then she wouldn't have had to witness it - and Dawn was just dying for the chance, anyway. Might have been a good way to stop the endless bickering.

Talk about a rock and a hard place.

"I take it you two have an open relationship as well?" Robin asked her.

"In a sense," she said. "Though it's really more of a 'he sleeps with anyone he likes unless I peel them off him, and he keeps telling me I can do the same thing' relationship."

"Doesn't sound ideal."

She snorted. "You can say that again."

It had been ideal, in the beginning. No more heartbreaking passion, or wallowing in badness, or even demands of emotional closeness. Just sex all night long, cappuccinos in the morning, and then more sex. Easy, guilt-free, no risk of babies or STDs and yet the ability to go out in the sunlight.

The only thing she'd had to trade in was the idea that she meant something to him. Or - if she was to be honest with herself - that he meant something to her. Something beyond a really good time that made her unwilling to let go or share.

"Do you think they'll let me join in?" she asked.

His eyebrows shot up. "Do you want to?"

"I don't know. Maybe." She couldn't bear those sounds much longer. She felt like Ella, stretching her chains, only she had the strength to keep seated without metal to bind her. God, so close and so far away... and with Faith of all people. Made it the second time Faith had moved in on her boyfriend, and this time with mutual consent. She bit her lip, hard. "No. But I hate being left out of it."

"Television?" Robin suggested.

She could totally get on board with that. "Yeah, but what's on at this hour? Bad porn?" The sad humour of that comment struck her a split second too late, and she had to laugh.

Robin laughed too. "Only one way to find out."

He gestured for the remote, and she grabbed it, turning on the television. She zapped past a couple of empty channels, a pool tournament, something that looked like a cheesy SF film (she could always return later), a news show...

"Hang on," Robin said, leaning forward with a frown on his face. "What was that?"

Buffy zapped back to the news show.

"...from Cleveland, the riots are increasing, with three more people reported kidnapped during the past 24 hours..."

Buffy sighed at the pictures of violence on the screen. "Vamps recruiting. Is it always like this?"

"It's never like this." Robin looked stunned. "We know our jobs, we..." He drifted off, staring towards the bathroom. The noises had come to a sudden stop, and soon Faith rushed into the living room, buttoning up a too-large pajama shirt. It wasn't the Immortal's, at least. Buffy wondered if it was Robin's.

Faith glanced at the TV and turned it off while the news anchor was still talking about the riots. "Yeah," she said breathlessly, spinning around to face Robin and Buffy. "About that..."

"You knew?" Robin asked, sounding more incredulous than angry.

"You knew!" Faith said. When Robin seemed to remain as oblivious as Buffy felt, Faith nodded toward Ella, who was sitting with her knees pulled up against her chest and a smug expression on her face. "Pompous Shithead guy is still making new kidlets. I'm guessing we only egged him on by getting hold of this one."

Robin scowled at Ella, who put her tongue under her lower lip at him, like one of his students might. He then turned to Faith, looking at her silently for a very long time.

The Immortal came out from the bathroom, robe open so his naked chest was visible. Buffy had no illusions about it being an accident. "What's going on?"

"Evil-fighting stuff," Buffy said. "You can go back to bed if you like."

He lifted one slender shoulder in a shrug and went into the bedroom without another word.

"So why are they doing this?" Buffy asked. "Vamps aren't usually this keen on creating competition for themselves."

"They're getting jumpy," Faith said. "They're not used to Slayers that can call in for backup."

Robin shifted in his seat. "You'll have to go in again, you know," he said. "Both of you, the sooner the better."

"Yeah," Faith snapped, "because that went so well last time."

"They're just gonna keep coming," Buffy pointed out. "We need to nip this in the... well, not so much the bud as the blooming-thingy-that-isn't-all-over-the-place-yet."

"Great," Faith said. "Go in there. I got a curse to fix."

"Faith..." Robin sounded very tired. "It is important that even now, we... you know... keep our eyes on the mission."

She spun around, almost snarling. "I thought I'd explained to you and to Crowley that you are the mission!"

Considering that she'd just been banging another guy in the bathroom, that was a bit rich, and Buffy couldn't stop herself from scoffing. Faith didn't seem to notice. She was still shouting accusations at Robin, half of which Buffy didn't understand, and Robin answered them with his arms folded and his voice all principal-y. Buffy wondered if he meant to break up with Faith or send her to detention. She also wondered if he had any idea how condescending he came off.

She sat down, figuring that she might as well wait this out and see if they came to some sort of conclusion.

All that happened initially was that Robin lost his temper too, and the two of them were yelling at each other.

"Not everything in this world is about what makes you happy!" Robin shouted.

"Well, if you're too fucking stupid to want to save your own life..."

"It's not like we have a clue! You might as well be out there, do some good!"

"I tried that! We're gonna wait until you're back in the game!"

"Well, what if I nev..."

"Shut up!" Faith's voice went into falsetto.

Robin did shut up, and the two of them glared at each other.

"You shouldn't get so upset," Faith said in a much lower voice. "It's bad for your heart."

"There's nothing wrong with my heart," Robin said, but he too was speaking in a normal voice again. "How about we give it another day, and tomorrow night you go get them, with or without me?"

Faith thought about that, and then nodded. "Fine. Tomorrow night it is. That's okay with you too, B?"

She was given a vote on this? "Hey, I'm here for the slayage," she said. "Any night's fine with me."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8  
Ella

* * *

Ella dreamed of her parents. She could hear them arguing in quiet voices while she was hiding inside a cupboard. Somehow, even though the cupboard door was closed, her mother's face was clear to her view, pinched and scowling, her pale eyes narrow. Such an uncommonly plain woman – downright ugly when she got that expression on her face.

"I don't think that woman is even his daughter," her mother said. "She looks too old - and Lord knows how old she really is, seeing how she looks just the same as she did ten years ago."

"Her hair's different," her father said.

"Thomas!"

"Even if that's true, I don't see why it's any of our concerns."

"Is that really a man you want near Ella?"

"We've known him for ten years..."

"You have occasionally done business with him over the past ten years. That's not the same as knowing a man, Thomas. I don't think you know him at all. I certainly don't."

"It never seemed to trouble you before."

"She was a child before. She's not one now."

"Are you worried that he might want to marry her?"

"No. I'm worried that he won't."

Ella closed her fists hard in anger, her nails making marks in the skin. She could smell the blood seeping through, which surprised her even in the dream, because she wasn't supposed to do that, she was still human...

...Her mother's pale eyes stared up at her, unseeing. And her father – her other father – was licking the blood away from his lips.

"I'm so sorry," he said. "Would you like a taste? I'm afraid she's already dead, but the blood is still warm."

She laughed and took the corpse from his arms, placing her teeth at the mark his had left, and for the first time, she felt her face change as she drank deeply from her mother's throat.

"You're a wicked child," her mother told her, eyes still cold and dead.

Patience was poking at the other corpses with the toe of her mauve silk shoe. "She should have killed them herself," she pointed out. "You can't go around eating all of her relatives for her."

"Never let it be said that I don't take care of my children," Mr. Merriweather said.

Horace laughed and broke a finger off Ella's youngest brother, gnawing on it like a peppermint stick. It was still decades until Horace would be born, but there he was never the less.

Patience stepped up to Ella, taking her face in long, slender hands. "She's not your child anymore now that she's human." Her fingers drew circles on Ella's cheeks, and she smiled. "She needs her family back."

"I don't remember their names," Ella whispered. It seemed important to know their names, but she didn't. They were just corpses.

"Don't worry about it," Patience said. "It's all over for them. It's all over for me. Is that what you want? Do you want me to take you with me?"

Ella closed her eyes. "Yes."

* * *

When she opened them again, the first of the Slayer girls was staring at her. She turned her face away to avoid the gaze. There were drops of something wet on her mouth, and when she licked her lips she realized that it was tears. Clumsily, she dried them away with a manacled hand.

"Whose names is it you can't remember?" Faith asked.

"Fuck you," Ella said.

"How did you like the pizza?"

Ella glanced down at the dry pizza crusts on the floor. She had eaten the rest. More than that, she had enjoyed the rest. Raw meat was one thing - she could justify raw meat to herself, claim that it was just blood with a bit of flesh on it. But pizza? Even with the anchovies, it wasn't much of a kill. Any day now, she'd turn as veggie as the guy rotting on the couch - not that he was there now, she noticed. Maybe he was eating or going to the bathroom or doing another of those gross human things she'd been reintroduced to lately.

"Are you here to prod me with crosses again?" she asked, trying to avoid the issue.

"Nope. We're gonna have a little talk."

She grimaced. "I'd rather have the crosses."

"What were you dreaming?"

She leaned her face on her arms and sighed. Suddenly she missed her parents something fierce - her nagging mother who could suck the fun out of every endeavour, and her spineless, bland father. She had watched them die, and she had laughed.

This was ridiculous, she told herself. They would have been dead now in either case. Not like Patience and the others, whose lives had really been cut short by their murder.

"Well?"

"None of your business," she mumbled.

Faith grabbed her by the hair and lifted her head up, slamming it into the wall. "Me and Buffy are going in tonight. That means everything is my business. Everything you know, I want to know."

"You do know everything I know!" Ella hissed. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm stuck in this place. Have you seen my f... any vampires bringing news to me?"

The sarcasm she had been going for was destroyed by her slip-up. She had started to say "father", but with the dream still fresh in mind, it gave her a bad taste in her mouth.

"You've known this guy for hundreds of years," Faith said. "I'm figuring you learned a thing or two that would be useful."

Ella had to laugh at that. Wow, the Slayer was really reaching for straws now. "You're not getting anywhere near him."

Faith remained silent at this.

"You know that, don't you?" Ella continued after a moment's pause. "You're gonna get the cannon fodder - dozens of new vamps with their heads up their asses. There's no way you can kill them all. You're gonna die tonight - you and Blondie. Your lover's gonna die here of old age, and I..." She swallowed hard. "I suppose I'll starve to death chained to this wall. Unless the doc decides to take me home and dissect me."

"No one's gonna dissect you," Faith said, clearly irritated.

Ella scoffed. "You don't even know what to do with me. Why should I tell you anything?"

Faith slapped her, but she only raised her head higher.

"Fine," she said. "You hurt me. Big deal. It doesn't change anything. You've already done all you will do to me, and I'm bored. You won't kill me, and you won't set me free. I don't even care what you do anymore."

"Which would you prefer?" Faith asked icily.

The question wasn't serious, but Ella considered it anyway. At long last, her answer was: "Either. Offer me either, and you're on."

Faith stood up abruptly and turned away, hands in her pockets.

"Come on, Slayer," Ella said. "Haven't you ever killed someone with a pulse before?"

"Yeah," Faith admitted. Her face was still turned in the other direction, but there was something in her voice that resembled anguish. So, good news and bad - because what was the point of Faith having murdered someone, if she wasn't willing to do it again?

"What are you waiting for, then?" Ella said, egging her on.

Faith's reply was long in waiting. Finally she turned back, suggesting: "I have a... friend, in Brazil. She's a pretty powerful witch. Went over the edge there for a while, so she knows... well, she'd know a thing or two on how to come back from that. If she's willing to take you on, you could go there."

Ella raised her eyebrows, trying to figure out that suggestion. It wasn't freedom, that much she understood. "Are you saying you want her to mentor me?"

"Something like that, yeah," Faith said, sounding a little embarrassed.

"I don't even speak Portuguese!"

"She's American. She just lives there."

Ella considered that. It was a shitty option, being forced into the goody two-shoes mold by some smelly herb-squisher in South America. But she couldn't deny that it was better than being chained to a wall. "Got a question," she said. "If I don't like it there... can I still die?"

Faith looked puzzled. "Why wouldn't... oh." Her expression went from puzzled to sick. "Sure. Knock yourself out."

Ella nodded thoughtfully. "Okay, it's a deal."

"Good."

"Still think it'd be easier if you just killed me."

"Easier for you, maybe," Faith said, and there was a hint of a cynical smile on her lips. "I'm selfish enough to not want to. Okay, settled then! First thing tomorrow, I'm calling her."

"What if you die tonight?" Ella countered.

"Then I'll write my will today and let her inherit you."

Oh, great, a joke. Her entire future was on the line here, and the Slayer thought it was all a chance to be witty. So now she'd have to wish for the safe return of a Slayer - and a Slayer fighting her fucking father. It was unnatural.

She sat down cross-legged and started to talk. "He only ever made three people before. Patience, Horace and me. Horace made Pearl, Patience made Jeremy and Dean. Those two are the only ones he's got left now, and they never made anyone before this. Dean's a fuck-up anyway. Jeremy..." She wrinkled her nose. "Jeremy's a jerk, but he's smart. He'll play dirty tricks on you."

"And your sire?" Faith asked.

She'd told them over and over again that she was a vampire, not a human. So why did that word, "sire", bother her so much? "He's good. Very good. Clever and persuasive, will fuck with your head every way from Sunday. Maybe not much of a problem in a fair fight - but you're not gonna get him in a fair fight. Not him. You'll get the new ones, just like last time."

"Yeah, well, the only problem with them is that there's so damned many of them."

"They're idiots," Ella agreed, "and it's not hard to get idiots to be loyal. Doesn't change the fact that he's only known them for a couple of nights. Sooner or later, they'll start figuring out that he doesn't give a shit what happens to them, and they'll scatter all over town. And when one starts, they'll all go - well, almost all, anyway," she amended, thinking of the floozie who'd shown her hots for Dean. Probably a few others like that in the bunch. "If that TV broadcast is anything to go by, it's already happening. He'll keep turning them, but I doubt you'll even find as many vampires in there as you did last time."

"I'll just have a whole city full of them instead," Faith said sarcastically.

"And a chance to take them out one at a time. They're not gonna keep turning new ones without him to tell them to. You'll stand a chance of winning the upper hand again. Supposing you survive tonight, of course. There'll still be enough of them left to give you real trouble. If I were you, I'd wait until I was sure the tables had turned."

"Wouldn't that mean more people dying?"

Ella snorted. "Well, yeah."

"Kinda rules out that option, then."

Slayers and their sense of nobility. Ella rolled her eyes. She wouldn't have figured Faith for the type, but sometimes you were wrong about people. Didn't matter to her, though. She'd kept her part of the deal, and if Faith was playing fair, she'd be heading off to Brazil whether the Slayers survived the night or not.

If Faith wasn't playing fair, she figured she was screwed either way.

The tall old guy with the prodding fetish entered the room. Ella wrapped her arms protectively around her knees, but he barely seemed to notice her existence.

"I just got off the phone with Wyndam-Pryce," he told Faith. "He has dug up an old spell that will let a Slayer connect to previous Slayers through their possessions. It seems it was used in the old times as a method to pass down wisdom through the generations."

Faith rose to her feet, frowning. "You mean I could use it to talk to Signe?"

"Get information directly from the source. Yes. The only downside is that it has to be performed at night."

"Yeah, fine," Faith said, and then she thought about it. "Oh. Well, okay, we do that tonight and postpone the slayage until tomorrow."

"Faith," old proddy said, exasperated, "If you would just try to think like a Slayer instead of a girlfriend..."

"If you would just try shutting up, that would help too," Faith countered. "We get this done first, and that's one load off my chest. Tomorrow day we take care of the vamps. That way they're weaker, I'm a more focused fighter, and if we're real lucky, we've even got Robin back."

Ella noted with interest that Faith didn't mention anything Ella had told her, and yet the revised plan would allow for more time for things to go wrong at the Merriweather house.

"I know what I'm doing," Faith continued, "so stop Watchering me."

He stood silently for a while, and then his mouth twitched a little. "Old habits are hard to break."

"Yeah? Well, you were a plastic surgeon for longer than you were a Watcher. I don't see you offering me a nose job."

"Would you like one?"

She growled at him. "Fuck off. We're doing it my way?"

"We're doing it your way," he agreed.

The two of them started to leave for the kitchen. Ella was suddenly worried that this turn of events would mean that Faith forgot everything about her, and she called out, "Hey, Slayer?"

Faith turned back, caught her eye, and after a moment's pause nodded. "Right. I gotta call Willow."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9  
Faith

* * *

Faith sat down on the floor and placed her hands so the palms rested on the sword and the fingertips on the sheath. Her mouth was dry, and she kept licking her lips, but she wouldn't be any other place but right there. She'd been afraid that Buffy would want to be the one doing the spell, since they were both Slayers, but to her surprise Buffy never even questioned the idea that this was Faith's responsibility.

"Hark, Slayer," she said. "Thy sister calleth thee... is there a reason I have to talk like this? She's not gonna understand English anyway, is she?"

"None of us are very experienced with witchcraft," Crowley said. "It's safer not to mess with the spell. Go on."

Faith shrugged and tried to remember the place where she had stopped. Her eyes caught The Immortal's, who was sitting at the edge of the bed with a cynical smile on his face. When he noticed her look, he winked.

"Uh," she said, unable to find the words she needed.

Buffy made a grimace at the Immortal, who raised his eyebrows and showed the whites of his fine dark eyes in mock innocence.

"Wait outside," Buffy hissed.

"Oh, no!" he protested. "Am I not allowed to witness this riveting journey into the world of magic? Is it because I am an unbeliever?"

"No, it's because you're a distraction, and you know it," said Buffy.

The Immortal got up and flashed Faith a last wide smile before he left. It wasn't an encouraging smile. It was a fucking patronizing smile that said he was gonna indulge the silly little humans in their silly little games. It still made her heart beat faster.

The view she got of his ass when he walked past her didn't help much either.

"Take your time," Buffy told her with surprising kindness. "Make sure you're ready, and then start from the top."

Faith took a deep breath, inhaling the smoke from the candles. She watched Robin, sunk deep into his armchair, and reminded herself that the ass on the line here wasn't the Immortals.

"Hark, Slayer," she said, wishing that someone could have put the Slayer texts into proper English. She rattled through the words, stumbling here and there, and all the while she thought, Come on, Signe, pick the fuck up!

She was way too tired for this. Her head was swimming, which made the candles swim in and out of focus, and she could hear herself stumbling over more and more words in the spell. She couldn't do anything about it, though. They were just words anyway. Signe wouldn't fail her – she'd get the answers she needed, find a way to save Hendrik.

She wiped the sweat away from her face. Those damned candles made it way too hot in there.

* * *

"Where did your thoughts travel just now?"

She lifted her head, shaking it slightly, and offered Hendrik a smile. "Nowhere. It's much too hot in here; I nearly fell asleep, that's all."

She let her gaze wander further, to the sword being formed. As she watched, the swordsmith cooled it off and handed it with a bow to the old woman waiting beside him.

"Is it done?" She was completely unable to hide her excitement, and the smile Embla gave her implied that to to an old lady like her, there was very little difference between a Slayer and a mere child.

"The sword is just about done," old Embla said. "The spell needs some more work. Come over here and spit on it."

She raised an eyebrow at that, but Embla nodded for her to come closer, and so she took a few steps forward. The sword was a fine piece of work, and it felt like sacrilege to spit on it, but she trusted Hendrik's soothsayer almost as much as she trusted the man himself, and she hesitated only for a moment before gathering saliva in her mouth and spitting it down on the half-cooled metal. The spit hissed briefly on the surface and then disappeared without a trace.

Embla lifted the sword high above her head and started speaking in a strange language, words so long and soft that they made the hair stand up on Signe's arms. She tried to pick up some of the meaning, but couldn't. It didn't matter. She felt the sword in her soul, the taste of metal, anticipating the blood.

It was only a minute or two before Embla stopped speaking and lowered the sword again. "Now I need a drop of your blood."

Signe obediently drew the dagger from her belt and pricked her finger, but as she held the bleeding finger over the sword, letting the blood fall down, she asked, "What's next? Will I have to piss on it?"

"This will be enough," Embla replied, her voice dry but her eyes full of mirth.

Once again, she lifted the sword above her head and told it things in that long-worded language. Signe rubbed her arms, trying to make the hair lie down. There was something off in the air that made it look like Embla's hair and eyes were glowing of gold and fire.

And then it was gone. Embla handed the sword over to Signe and gave her a brisk bow. "It is done."

Taking the sword from Embla's hands was an tremendous sensation. She imagined that holding one's child for the very first time might be like this. Not that she'd ever known that feeling, or - most likely - ever would. Unable to control herself, she raised the blade to her lips, closed her eyes, and kissed it softly.

"You do know that's your own power you're fondling, right?" Hendrik asked with more than a touch of amusement.

She opened her eyes. "I always did love my power."

Waving one of the workers closer, he said, "Well, then. Just in case you want a bit of change..."

The worker handed him a sheath made of wood and leather, and he held it out to her opening first, ready to use. After a moment's pause, she stuck her sword in it, marvelling at the ease with which it went in.

"It's beautiful," she said, and it truly was, with the decorations and runes covering the soft surface. She followed the runes with her finger. 'The carrier of this sword is protected by Hendrik, the light king.' The words made her smile. They were bound to infuriate the dark kings of the mountain – as he very well knew when he had them written. It was a challenge to the forces of darkness, and one she was more than willing to issue right along with him.

"It's more than beautiful," he replied. "It's there to save your life."

When she realized what he meant, it was a gift all in itself. "Your power?"

"No matter where I am," he said, laying his hand on hers, "I'll always keep you whole."

The gift was partly for himself, she knew. When she was off fighting and his duties prevented him from joining her, he worried about her. There had been a few close calls, when her wounds had been grave and she almost hadn't made it back on time. And that made her worried as well – she considered herself ready for whatever fate awaited her, but at this point in her life, the great feast of Valhall could not quite compare to Hendrikshus.

"Thank you," she said and put her cheek next to his, rubbing it slightly. His beard tickled her skin.

"Anything for the Slayer," he teased.

That was so typical of him, turning the situation into a joke when it was anything but. She grabbed at his hair and tugged to punish him.

When she drew back and let go, for the first time she saw a glimmer of silver in the long strands.

* * *

He was resting in the orchard when she stormed by, and if she'd had any sense at all, she would have moved quietly enough to let him sleep, but she was too busy to think.

"Trouble?" he called after her.

"Trolls in Freydala," she called back.

"I'm coming with you."

She turned on her heel, staring at him as he rose to his feet. "No, you're damned well not!"

"I've fought trolls before."

"Before being the key word." She didn't mention the lines on his face, his greying hair, or how long it had taken him to stand up. They both knew it.

Something gleamed in his eyes. "I'm not an old woman."

"But you're getting there," she said, deliberately cruel. "You have been exhausting yourself with healer work. No one can keep it up at the rate you're going, and I won't have your blood on my hands."

"Is that why you didn't come to me?"

"What do you..."

His hands were fast even if his feet were not, and before she could stop him, he had pulled up her shirt, revealing the bandages below.

"You're going out there injured," he said. "How can you not let me protect you?"

"You're dying," she hissed.

The words hung between them. She was the first to avert her eyes and speak again.

"I won't have your blood on my hands." Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

"You won't have to." He took her hands in his, and for a moment, despite the callouses and wrinkles, it's as if no time had passed at all since the first night they spent together. "I have found a spell of protection, and Embla has agreed to try it. It's a form of armour, and if it works right..." He smiled. "If it works right, it will bring me back to strength."

"You would use magic tricks to stay in battle?" she asked, unable to keep contempt out of her voice.

"Haven't I always?"

"A gift from the gods is not a trick!"

His eyes fell on the sword by her side, and she felt her cheeks flush. They had been using magic for years. She had been told that girls were lining up in the Watchers' halls. Lining up, and never put to use. Nearly half her life had passed since she was called. Two children of her loins had been put out to die. The Slayer's fate was to live in solitude.

She'd broken that fate when she met Hendrik, and now she was contributing to his death - the death of an old man, in a sickbed.

She raised her hand to his face and stroke his cheek. "Have that armour finished," she said softly, "and join me then."

* * *

"He's dying."

Signe stared at Embla, trying to force those words to make some sort of sense. Of course Hendrik was dying; he had been dying for years, and he had most certainly been dying two years ago when Signe went on her journey to find the burrow of grave-swine.

"Dying how?" she asked, dropping the hog's head on the ground.

"His body is burning up in fever. He will not last the night."

Signe's mouth went dry, and she could find no breath. "He's dying now? Today?"

"Today, yes."

"But the spells he put on himself... the armour..."

"His body was too weak already," Embla said, her cheeks flushing red. "We are purging him of the spells, but I fear it is too late."

Signe brushed past her into the king's quarters, where serfs were swarming around the sickbed. Amidst their short-cropped heads of hair, Signe found one that was gleaming bald, and she frowned at the discovery. A monk. They had given a monk entry to Hendrik's quarters at his time of need, and how could that be anything but an ill omen?

"What is he doing here?" she asked with disdain.

The monk raised his bald head and met her gaze. "I am saying prayers for this man's soul, before it is too late."

Signe ignored him and turned to Embla, who had followed her inside. "What is he doing here?"

"I have asked him to add his skill and the grace of his god to ours," Embla said. "It can't hurt."

"It can cloud his path on Rimfrost," Signe snapped, kneeling down by Hendrik's bed. By now, his face was not only that of an old man, but seemed to melt away from his bones entirely, flesh almost gone and the skin flapping loose from his cheeks. As she reached out to touch him, he lurched over, and a serf held out a bowl. Signe watched in horror as Hendrik spewed out something thick and grey.

"What has he been eating?"

"At this point nothing but water," Embla said. "That's the spell coming off."

Signe stared at the content of the bowls. The color was most definitely metallic. Like a sword... or a suit of armour. "The armour was on his inside?"

"Around his bones."

"Are you insane?"

Hendrik's forehead furrowed even further at the sound of Signe's shrieking, and he moved to and fro in the bed.

"It would have worked if he had been stronger. Now it is poisoning him."

Signe's eyes once again fell on the monk and the beaded amulet he was using to contact his god. So that was why Embla was so willing to look for assistance even in the worshippers of White Christ. Her own skills had run out. "You did this," she told Embla, forcing herself to keep her voice low for Hendrik's sake. "You're the one killing him."

"It was only a matter of time. You know that."

"It is always only a matter of time." Signe let her hand run over Hendrik's hair, once so thick and long, now a few strands of matted whiteness.

Hendrik's gaze rested on her for a few seconds, but he showed no sign of recognizing her, and soon his eyes rolled up so only the white was visible. She knew that Embla was right, that even without the deadly spells, Hendrik would soon have met the same fate. But soon wasn't now, wasn't like this. She wasn't ready for this!

"Is there nothing to be done?" she asked, heart filled with desperation.

"There is one thing."

Signe looked up, and seeing the truth in Embla's face she rose and grabbed the older woman's neck, pushing her against the sturdy logs of the wall. "You have a cure? You have a cure and you left him in agony?"

"It's not a cure... as such..." Embla gasped, half-choking. "You have to... cut off... his head."

"What?" Signe was so stunned by this suggestion that she lt go, and the old witch nearly stumbled to the floor, rubbing her neck as she continued speaking.

"When I ran out of spells, I consulted the gods, and they told me that you have to cut off his head with the sword he gave you."

Signe shook her head, bewildered by what she was told. The sword was intended to kill evil, had been specifically linked to her power for that reason, and now the gods wanted her to use it to murder the man she loved? It was repulsive, desecration, and furthermore, she did not see what good it would do? "And would that make him better?"

Embla shook her head, tears filling her eyes. "I don't know. That is all they told me."

"So they might just want him to have a quick death." Signe sat down, leaning her face in her hands. This was impossible. How could the gods ask such a thing and then not tell what would happen if she did their bidding? She didn't even have any way of knowing if it were the gods speaking, or if Embla had understood them correctly. Their cryptic messages were notorious, and she had been sent to battle uninformed more than once because of it.

Rising a little, she pulled out her sword from the sheath and looked at it. Such a simple thing, and such a difficult decision. She turned it over, reading her name on the hilt. 'Signe, Slayer of evil.'

Abruptly, she stood up and pushed the sword back into the sheath. "I can't do this," she said, leaving the room.

She stopped on the courtyard, taking deep breaths and trying to calm herself down. Slayer of evil - what a joke. She was supposed to protect the innocent, and now she was asked to take their healer away. Their king. Her lover.

A sound escaped her lips. In someone else she might have called it a whimper, but the Slayer did not whimper. She carried her duty with pride and courage.

"My lady?"

She shook her head at the monk, who had come up behind her. "Go back inside, little gnat. I'll have none of you."

"I thought you would have none of me in there?"

"Oh, what difference does it make?" she asked in anguish. "He will die either way."

"You might consider the effect on his immortal soul if you do the witch's bidding."

She pondered that. "He will die in his bed like an old man. I will have spilled his blood... but it's not a battle. His soul will journey to the land of shadows, and I will never see him again. All the good he did, and yet the feasts of Valhall will not welcome him."

"Is that truly what you believe?"

She closed her eyes and turned her face up to the sky, wishing for rain to fall and hide her burning tears.

"My lady?" he asked, his voice gentle. "Would you like me to say a prayer for you?"

"I'm not the one dying."

"No, but you're tired and in grief. Perhaps the White Christ can heal your heart."

She shook her head, her eyes still closed. "Say no prayer. I'm sick of gods and powers. Forget for a moment that you are a monk, and stay with me as one mere mortal with another."

"As you wish."

"What am I to do without him?" she asked the sky. "I will not return with the Watchers to the south. I will not. But this is no home if he's not here."

The monk said nothing, and yet that was a comfort in itself, having someone near who - right now, at least - had no claims on her.

She remained standing as she was, with the monk by her side, even as the time passed and the wind grew cooler.

At long last, footsteps walked up to her, and Embla's voice called, "Signe."

"Oh, all right!" she replied, finally opening her eyes. "I'll end his sufferings, desecrate my duty. Why shouldn't I?"

Embla's face was ashen. "It's too late. He is gone."

Signe's sword dropped from her hand and fell clattering to the ground.

* * *

The sword dropped from her hands and fell clattering to the floor. The noise jolted her so much her eyes flew open, and she was shocked to see Buffy and the others gathered around her.

"Faith?" Buffy asked. "Are you all right? What happened?"

Faith blinked slowly, trying to get used to herself again after being somebody else. "Could you... leave?" she asked. Looking up, she said to Crowley, "You too. I need to be alone with Robin."

Crowley got up without a word and patted her gently on the shoulder before leaving the room. Buffy stood up as well, but hesitated.

"Are you sure?"

"Get out! Please..."

Buffy stared at her, and then shrugged and mumbled, "All right."

When Buffy had left as well, Faith just sat there, staring at the candles that had almost burned down.

"Hey," Robin said, taking her hand. "Nothing to be done?"

"Oh yeah," she said with a breath of laughter. She forced herself to meet his eyes. "There's something to be done all right. I'm gonna have to..." She swallowed hard and tried to force herself to say it, but she couldn't. She wanted to fight the gods and refuse to go through with it, but she still had Signe's memories and knew what would happen if she did. "Do you trust me?"

"You know I do."

Well, that made him a god-damned idiot, but she needed that trust. "Okay, so close your eyes, and... and whatever I do, don't move."

He let go of her hand and closed his eyes. Fucking gullible piece of shit.

"I don't know if this'll work," she said, "but I tried not doing it and that didn't work."

"What?"

"Shh! No talking either."

He smiled a little. Damn him! He wouldn't be so happy if he knew what she was planning. She should tell him, it wasn't fair to do it like this - but how could she? 'I want to cut off your head - but it'll be all right in the end, you'll see!' She picked up the sword, weighing it in her hand, preparing for the blow.

"This could kill you," she blurted out.

He opened his eyes. She couldn't blame him, but she wished he hadn't. As much as he had changed, the look in those eyes was still the same. "Faith... have you ever known me for being afraid of taking risks? I'm tired of this; I want it to stop. Just tell me what it was you saw in that trance of yours, and then for God's sake, act on it!"

"I can't tell you," she said. "I'm sorry."

And then, despite the fact that he was talking and moving and his eyes were open, she raised her sword, and before he had a chance to parry she struck the blow, blood spurting from his neck.

Heat flared up from the sword, burning Faith's fingers, and she screamed in shock and pain, dropping it on the floor where it burst into flames. She watched it turning in something singed and twisted that had some vague resemblance to a sword, but an equal resemblance to a piece of rusty pipe or a rebar. The flames mixed with the blood on the ground to an orange-red blur before her tear-filled eyes. She sat down on the floor, eyes fixed on the fire, and rocked slowly back and forth with her hands cradled in her lap.

A hand touched her arm. "Are you hurt?"

She flinched and looked up, and oh God, there was Robin crouching down next to her, blood all over his shirt but his head right where it should be. She blinked a couple of times. He was still there, and he looked young again. Well, as young as he'd ever been, anyway. She gasped for breath and then started bawling like a little kid.

"Hey. Hey, hey, hey hey..." He sat down on the floor. "It's okay now."

When he tried to take her hands in his, she drew back. "Don't..."

"It's gone," he said, turning her hands over and running his thumb lightly on the edge of one bright red burn. "Nothing I can do now."

"Good!" Faith said, grimacing a little as his touch made her injury smart more. Yeah, no healing touch left, that was for sure.

The flames flickered and died out, leaving only a line of blackened ashes. Stretching her head, Faith could see a similar line near the burned-out candles. The sheath.

Robin followed her gaze. "They're gone too," he said, stating the obvious with a sense of wonder in his voice. "You did it. You broke the curse."

"Only took me a thousand years."

"What?"

She shook her head, trying to clear it from the memories and feelings of an old dead Slayer. "Sorry. Still caught up in the spell, I guess."

"Well, we should see to your hands," he said. "And, uh, my clothes. Can you stand?"

She nodded and did so. His clothes really did look a mess; she doubted they'd ever be clean again. The floor was just as bad, with both blood, pools of half-dried candle grease, and those piles of ashes - ashes she was determined not to touch with a twenty-foot pole, thank you very much.

"I'm sorry about your shirt," she said.

"You could have told me what you were about to do," he deadpanned, "and I would have taken it off."

She scoffed. "Like you would have let me if you'd known."

"I'd let you do a lot of things."

She sneaked a hand under his sticky shirt, ignoring the pain. "Oh yeah? Anything fun?"

"No, because we have vampires to kill."

"I wasn't talking about that kind of fun," she complained and met his laughing eyes.

That was a mistake. It struck her then with full force what had happened and what had nearly happened, and she pulled away from him.

"Vamps it is, then," she said.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10  
Robin

* * *

Having his body back to strength was a feeling more fantastic than any he had felt, and part of him wanted very much to take Faith up on her offer of after-spell sex. But they had other business to attend to, and he felt more than happy at the thought of a fight as well. For the first time, he believed he truly understood Faith's assurance of the 'hotness' of slayage.

He hadn't expected fanfares as he stepped into the living room, but he was surprised that only Crowley seemed to notice him – his eyes lit up and he ran over, catching Robin in a bear hug.

Robin hugged back, feeling like a little kid again, safe in Crowley's arms, even as he was awkwardly aware of his bloody shirt staining Crowley's as well.

Buffy, meanwhile, was having a one-sided shouting match with the Immortal, only offering Robin a brief glance and a smile-lit, "Hey there!" before returning to the topic. "I wasn't asking much of you, but if it was ever a time to keep it in, don't you think it would be tonight?"

Robin had no idea what that was about, but he grinned anyway, amused to see that even apparently irresistible men could find themselves in trouble with their girlfriends. Then his gaze fell on the wall, and his grin died when he saw the empty chains.

"Where's Ella?" he asked.

Buffy made an angry sound through her nose. "Care to tell him?" she asked the Immortal.

The Immortal didn't seem inclined to answer her question; he just rolled his eyes and sat down on the couch. He was starting to sport a black eye, and Robin wondered if Buffy was the one responsible for it.

Crowley was the one who finally explained, "It seems our ancient friend isn't too old to be fooled by a pretty girl's flatterings. While we were busy with the spell, he tried to get a certain ex-vampire to sleep with him."

"She offered," the Immortal pointed out.

Robin rubbed his forehead, unable to believe that anyone could be that oblivious.

Faith, a few steps behind, had no such problems. "Except instead of sex, you got knocked down and she headed out the front door, is that it? Boy, if you could die I'd rip out your heart! Don't you realize that she's been here for weeks? She knows everything about us! Who we are, what we're planning, our strengths and weaknesses..."

"Not all of them," Robin thought out loud. He gestured at himself. "She doesn't know about... well, this."

Crowley narrowed his eyes, apparently only now noticing the blood on Robin's neck and clothes. "Are you hurt?"

"Not anymore." He smiled to show that he was really unhurt, not just putting on a brave face.

"Okay, yeah," Faith said. "She doesn't know that. Everything else, though, she's got down pat. Anyone thinking she'll not run and tell daddy?"

"There's something else she doesn't know," Buffy said, her eyes fixed on the Immortal. "She doesn't know he's fighting with us."

The Immortal looked up and gave a startled laugh. "Me? Surely you're joking?"

"Not even close. You owe us that much."

The Immortal leaned back with an indulgent smile. "Be that as it may, I don't fight."

"Oh, you will fight." The edge in Buffy's voice was so much like Robin's mother's that it sent shivers down his spine. "If you don't, I'm gonna see to it that you're sent into the world that has nothing but shrimp. You think you're bored now, see what an eternity there will do to you."

The Immortal's smiled faded. There was no mistaking Buffy's seriousness now. "I haven't fought anyone in centuries!"

"Well, you have a few hours to practice. Better get started - you'll be the front line."

"So basically I'm to be your pin-cushion?"

Buffy made a small jerk with her head. "You bet, lover."

"She's good," Crowley murmured to Robin.

Robin agreed. There was no doubt that the Immortal would fight with them - but there was also no doubt that what they'd just witnessed was, more than anything else, a break-up. As strong and tough and Slayer-like Buffy looked right then, he couldn't help but feel sorry for her.

* * *

The main downside of fighting vampires in the daytime was trying to be inconspicuous. It was early enough that the morning rush hadn't started yet, but Robin suspected that before they were out of there, the road would be swarming with cars.

Of course, if they were dead, that would be none of their concerns. The Immortal would be left standing, but then, he didn't really care what happened to the Immortal.

He threw a glance towards Crowley, wishing that the old man'd had the sense to stay home. Sure, he was spry for his age, but now that Robin knew a little something about aching bones and a failing heart, he rather thought 'spry' wouldn't cut it. Letting a man in his seventies into a vamp's nest - even behind two Slayers and a guy who by definition couldn't die - was madness.

Crowley caught his glance and grinned, waving a little with the crossbow. Crazy old Watcher.

"Get ready!" Faith hissed. "Morty ol' boy, that's you up here."

The Immortal's expression was anything but amused, but he stepped up. Buffy and Faith looked at each other for a second before kicking the door down with a simultaneous, forceful blow. They quickly took a step back after that, letting the Immortal lead the way inside.

For the first couple of rooms, there were no vampires. Then they found a pair lying on the sofa, limbs tangled around each other in sleeping embrace. The Immortal gave them a doubtful look, but Faith walked past him with her stake raised, dusting the first before it even had time to wake up.

The other opened its eyes and hollered, "They're here!" Faith's stake found its target, but a second too late - any vampire in the house would have heard that call.

"Formation!" Buffy ordered. "It's gonna get rough from here."

Her prediction was right. A few minutes later the vamps started to show up - not one or two at a time, as they might have if they were unprepared, but in rows. There were never less than two or three at a time attacking each Slayer, Robin noticed, but the end result of that was that most of the vampires went straight for the Immortal, clearly expecting him to be easier to take down.

Even so, there were more than enough vampires to keep Robin busy as well, and in the corner of his eye he could see Crowley firing his crossbow over and over again. The air filled with dust, and yet there were still more vampires coming.

A cold hand gripped his neck from behind, pulling him closer, and he barely managed to shake himself loose. As he spun around, he felt a blade cut into his neck - not again! - and he hurried to plunge in the stake.

It was a lot harder than it should have been, breaking through skin, and when he pulled the stake back it was covered in blood. He stared in shock at Ella's widened blue eyes as she fell to the floor and remained still.

No dust. He felt nauseated.

A crossbow bolt whirred past him and hit a vampire a few feet away. His gaze following the bolt's path back, he saw Crowley giving him a disapproving shake of the head. He knew what that headshake meant. He had allowed the moment to distract him, and at a time like this, that was something they couldn't afford.

The herd of vampires were thinning out now, but he wasn't the only one bleeding. He could see a trickle of blood running down Faith's temple, and he wondered if perhaps her singed hands were hindering her more than she would let on.

As for the Immortal, he was, just like he had predicted, turning into a pin cushion. His lithe body was so full of wounds and scrapes that Robin had to feel sorry for him. Even if he couldn't die, being perforated like that had to hurt like hell.

Another vampire attacked, and Robin found himself in a tight spot, since backing would mean falling straight into the battle between Faith and her vampire. She was just fighting one now, he noticed, but that didn't make Robin more eager to stand between them. He forced himself to push forward instead, earning himself a couple of quick blows to the head and a kick to the stomach that made him lose his breath for a moment. This was no fledgling. It had to be one of the original vampires from the first fight - and coming to think of it, it did look a little familiar. He got a couple of punches in and tried to remember what Faith had recounted of what she'd learned from Ella. Two vamps besides the leader, Dean and Jeremy, but was this Dean or Jeremy? Faith should have asked for physical descriptions.

He was knocked to the ground, but managed to pull himself together and yank the vampire down with him. Rolling onto his side, he drove the stake in just as Faith had finished with her own vampire and was heading over.

"I'm fine," he told her, standing up. "No need for a rescue mission."

She flashed a quick grin at him. "Sorry. Habit."

Buffy was having it out with Mr. Merriweather himself and had evidently figured out that he was more than a handful, because she drove him towards the Immortal. By then, Robin was really feeling sorry for the Immortal, who was fighting battles on three fronts at once. But cornering Merriweather like that clearly worked, because Buffy was able to stake him only a minute or two later.

Robin wasn't a big fan of horror movies, and one of the reasons he wasn't was how very simple things were in them. Kill the head vampire, and all the others would drop like flies. Well, the head vampire was dead, and he had lasted a lot longer than most of his minions, but there were still several left to fight. One of them was knocking Crowley - who was supposed to stay in the back, damn him! - to the ground. Robin rushed over and yanked the vampire away, pounding on him over and over without regard to fatigue - or to the pounding the vampire did back. Last time he had felt this furious with a vampire was in that fight with Spike a year ago, and like then, he didn't care if it killed him.

But this time, he actually won the fight, watching in breathless satisfaction as the vampire turned into dust.

"Why did you do that for?" he asked, hauling Crowley up from the ground. "You were supposed to stay behind us!"

Crowley groaned.

"You okay?" Robin asked, now worried as well as angry. Crowley was standing up, which was a good thing, but...

"I'm fine," Crowley said, rubbing his side. "I just strained my back."

At the other end of the room, the Immortal and the two Slayers were finishing off the last vampires. After the constant fighting, the silence that followed was eerie. Dust had settled heavily on the floor, interrupted by marks of footprints and fallen bodies.

And in one corner lay Ella's corpse in a pool of blood.

Robin was still holding Crowley up; by the two of them got to the body, Faith was already there, staring down with a look of revulsion on her face.

"Stupid, fucking bitch," she snarled.

Robin bit his lip. He told himself that the body on the floor was, to all intents and purposes, a vampire. An evil creature that had certainly done nothing to redeem herself during the weeks she had been their prisoner. This was the best solution: the wretched thing no longer suffered, his living room could be a living room instead of a dungeon, and they wouldn't have to bother Willow Rosenberg.

He just wished she could have turned to dust like the rest of them, or that he didn't know so much about her. It nauseated him to remember the feeling of a stake hitting living flesh, and it was even worse to look down at that dead face and think 'Ella'.

The others gathered around the corpse too.

"I guess we have to bury it somewhere," Buffy said.

The Immortal shrugged. "She's centuries old - we could dump her anywhere and she'd never be missed."

Faith's eyes met his, and he knew that she, at least, understood.

"Take her into the backyard," she said. "It's sheltered enough no one will see us digging."

* * *

To think that such little things could bring such great pleasure. Taking the chains down from the wall. Making some rooibos tea without having to ask for help and sitting down with Crowley in the kitchen to drink it.

Buffy and The Immortal had packed up their bags. Robin had a feeling that they were both eager to get out of the apartment and on the first possible plane to Rome, where they could proceed to never see each other ever again.

"Must have been two dozen vampires in there," Crowley mused, taking a sip of his tea. "A pretty spectacular failure on our part."

"Hardly on your part," Robin said, feeling a pang of guilt and sorrow at the thought of all the people who might have lived if he'd never picked up that damned sheath. "This one's on Faith and me."

Crowley shook his head. "Two people in a situation like this... you need the Council. Some sort of council, anyway. I'm glad they're starting to work something out. Do you think it'll help once those Junior Slayers get here?"

"I hope so," Robin said. In a way, it was comforting to think of more super-powered girls to help keep the Hellmouth in check. On the other hand, he couldn't help thinking about the reasons Merriweather had stated for forming his army: the threat of a world full of Slayers. "Is it... Do you think it's possible that Slayers may actually attract danger? That they could cause people to die who otherwise wouldn't?"

"Yes," Crowley replied right away. "In a Hellmouth, though, the effect would be minute compared to the good she'd do. The same goes for larger cities - anywhere where evil would gravitate. In safer or more remote areas... Yeah, then the Slayer could be a danger to the population. And then," he threw a meaningful glance at Robin, "there's always the problem with personal relationship."

Robin knew where he was going with that comment, but circumvented it by steering the conversation to a topic he knew to be sensitive to Crowley: "Mm. Like that abortion."

Crowley blinked, and his expression was so chagrined Robin regretted saying something. "I thought she made the wrong decision, yes. Objectively speaking, I suppose it was the wrong decision..." He raised his hand and stroke Robin's cheek. "Sometimes the wrong decision is the best one. I wouldn't want to have missed out on knowing you for the world."

Robin tried to smile, but the tears in his throat prevented him. "Same here."

"So," Crowley asked, clearing his throat, "When will I next see you in Los Angeles?"

"Soon," Robin promised. He'd had no idea how much he had missed his old guardian until seeing him again brought up all the memories. "I just need to make sure everything's under control here."

He caught sight of Faith, who was passing by the kitchen with a canvas bag over her shoulder. "Hey," he said. "Where are you heading?"

She stopped and made a grimace. "Away. I need to get out of here."

He could certainly understand that impulse. For one thing, it must have been several days since she last saw her own apartment. And she had never been keen on hanging around once the action was over. "Okay," he said. "Call me."

She hesitated, and then gave him an unusually shy smile. "Sure thing."

As he watched her go, he thought about maybe getting out some himself. He should get back to work tomorrow, of course, but perhaps he could get a few beers tonight anyway.

It felt great to be young.


	11. Epilogue

Epilogue  
Faith

* * *

Faith steered her bike past a truck on the highway, shaking her head a little so she could properly feel the wind in her hair. It was fucking dangerous letting it hang loose, but she liked that. All the danger, all the thrill, and none of the responsibilities. It was like being let out of prison once again.

And yet the deep dark pit wouldn't go away from her stomach.

Her phone went off, making the pit even darker and deeper. She knew what it was: Robin finally figuring things out. She had when they said goodbye - well, kind of goodbye - that he didn't get it, but she couldn't bring herself to tell him that she meant to skip town.

Hellmouths just weren't good for a girl. And friends sure as hell weren't. She didn't know why Buffy was so keen on them.

The phone kept ringing. Well, there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it in the middle of the road. A passing trucker honked his horn at her, and she was more than happy to flip him the bird.

She hoped Robin had the sense to get out of Cleveland on his own. He was just a guy; next time he got cursed it'd probably kill him.

Well, at least she wouldn't be there to see him. She'd never again have to witness how he withered away, a little less of him every day, until all she could do was cut his fucking head off.

The ringing stopped, and she almost swerved off the road. The panicked thought, 'Don't die!' turned up in her stupid mind.

There had been such a fucking lot of vampires in that house. People she should have been saving instead of trying to figure out what to do with Robin.

She wished she could be sorry. She wished she could feel guilt or regret or anything beside this overwhelming certainty that it was all worth it, if he got to live. Fuck, she'd cut her own head off to make sure he lived.

That thought was just fucking scary.

She sped up the bike, leaving the cars far behind her as she found a clear spot of road, no one to hinder her way.

He'd made her promise to call, and she would, as soon as she got off the road. Just to let him know she was all right.

The last car disappeared from the rear view mirror. Nothing ahead except the white lines of the road. Faith took a deep, shaky breath of relief. She was alone.


End file.
